Wordscraper

Wordscraper is a Scrabble-style word game available as a Facebook application. It was created by the Agarwalla brothers Rajat and Jayant, creators of Scrabulous, and differs from Scrabble by having no fixed board design or tile distribution, instead prompting the user to choose their own.

Wordscraper
Type of site
Casual game
Available inEnglish
HeadquartersKolkata, India
Key peopleRajat Agarwalla, Co-founder
Jayant Agarwalla, Co-founder
ServicesOnline word game
Employees2 (January 2008)
URLWordscraper on Facebook
RegistrationRequired
Launched2008
Current statusActive

Wordscraper was reportedly released in response to a DMCA action against Scrabulous by Hasbro.[1] It has been online since January 2008.[2]

Game customisation

Wordscraper allows users to create a customised board and tile set of their choice. Users choose where premium squares are placed on the board. Premium squares range from 2x to 5x letter score and 2x to 5x word score. Users can also choose the tile distribution including quantity of each letter and score for each letter. Users are free to share the rules they have created with other players.

It is not possible to recreate the copyrighted Scrabble board layout using this process, or any rough approximation of the board - attempting to do so or to use a saved Scrabble-type layout results in a "Sorry, this board is not allowed" message or in the game being automatically changed to Wordscraper Standard. These restrictions were imposed as part of a legal settlement of a case brought by Hasbro concerning copyright of the Scrabble game.[3]

Differences from Scrabulous

In addition to the ability to create customised games, Wordscraper differs from Scrabulous in a number of ways including:

  • Circular tiles and 'squares' are available as an option: until December 2008 the square version was not available
  • Premium 'squares' have been recoloured.
  • The distribution of tiles can be modified.
  • Tiles have no scores marked on them.
  • The tile distribution can be viewed within the game.
  • Default tile distribution and scores are different (though some values are the same)
  • Wordscraper, as of December 2008, now has 8 tiles instead of the previous 7
  • As of 11/ 12 December 2008 boards even approximately resembling Scrabble are disallowed.

User base

As of 17 May 2010, Wordscraper has over 116,000 monthly active users.

References
  1. "Scrabulous Reborn as Wordscraper (Sort Of)". SitePoint. 2007-08-01. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
  2. "On Facebook, an 11-Letter Synonym for Scrabulous Turns Out to Be Wordscraper". New York Times. 2008-04-04. Retrieved 2008-04-05.
  3. http://www.lexulous.com/press.php
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