We were not a board game family, apart from the occasional attempt to get through Monopoly without my little sister flinging it onto the floor. My partner, however is from board game people. When we're with her family, there are dice and cards and tokens, words and numbers fly through the air, and I am utterly lost. I played Scrabble with her once. I used to think I was smart.
> [Elizabeth Magie] originally intended The Landlord's Game to illustrate the economic consequences of Ricardo's Law of economic rent and the Georgist concepts of economic privilege and land value taxation.
I play Wordfeud (a Scrabble clone) with my wife and mother. The three of us are quite competitive with each other. My mother-in-law played a few games, lost each of them, and then called it. Because her idea of having fun is, well, not doing your best. My mother had colleagues whom she played games with (quizzes I think?), and they were terrible simply because she doesn't care. An old book on this is 'Play To Win' by Dave Sirlin.
Anyway, legend has it the people who are best at Scrabble are from an SE Asian country (not sure which one it was), often barely speak English, but know all the 2 and 3 letter combinations and are able to lay those down well.
I suppose this isn't the only way to play Magic Maze. But why settle for less? :)
It's not just the 2 or 3 letter combinations, but knowing the combinations that work well together to form bingos (using all 7 letters) that lead to better chances for victory.
I just wonder, since they don't know English, but do recognize the patterns of words, couldn't one play what merely resemble words if it's beneficial? That is, play the "word", "HACKISH" to score at least 69 points (19 for letters + 50 for the bingo).
Like that dude who won a French scrabble tournament despite not knowing French.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ayBTn59PliQ&pp=ygUVc2NyYWJibGU...
No seriously, you'd be (like I was) surprised at how sweaty a game that appears for all the world like a /Mario Party/ clone can get.