Wordmeister Game Review

Wordmeister Game Background

Wordmeister is a single-player word-building crossword-style board game inspired by Scrabble. Play against a computer opponent and form words based on the letter tiles you’ve collected. Win by earning the most points.

This game was developed by MarketJS.

How to Play Wordmeister

To select, left click with your mouse or tap on the screen with your fingers. On the welcome screen, select Play to begin. From the avatar selection window, choose any of the portraits to represent you in-game. There are 8 (4 male and 4 female) to choose from.

Select a letter from the tray, then drag and drop it into any of the spaces on the board. To finish your turn, the letters you place on the board must form a valid word.

At any point in the game, you can use the tutorial to help you play. You can select the tutorial option before starting your session or select the tutorial button near the bottom left corner of the screen.

Basic Gameplay Advice

General Rules & Layout

You begin with a 15 x 15 board reminiscent of a Scrabble board. Much like in Scrabble, there are bonus spaces that increase the value of letters and words when they placed under them. The key difference between this game and Scrabble lie in the arrangement of these bonus spaces. In Scrabble, the bonus colored squares are arranged in rays that project outward from the center. In this game, the colored squares don’t intersect in the center; they instead form a diamond shape around the board.

Like in Scrabble, this game requires you to draw tiles and form words on them in the board. Form crossword style words that attach to other words starting from the center. In this game, you begin with 8 starting letters.

Forming Words

The words you form must be valid according to the game’s dictionary proper nouns (place names, personal names, and brand names) are not considered valid. Pluralized nouns and verbs in the past tense, on the other hand, are valid. You can form words horizontally or verbally. Although you can form multiple words in a single move, these must be formed in a single line. You can only lay down tiles in a single direction in each turn.

Select Shuffle on the bottom left corner to move the letter tiles around the tray at random to help you form words. You can use blank tiles to represent any letter. If you find yourself with a tile that’s hard to play, select Swap on the bottom right corner to switch out the tile for a new one from the tiles bag. Swapping a tile, however, will cause you to lose a turn.

To end your turn with a word, select Play near the bottom right corner of the screen.

Opening Moves

This game is a 1 x 1 match played against a computer opponent. The starting player is determined from a random draw of tiles. The player who has a tile that appears earlier alphabetically goes first. The player who goes first must build their word at the center; this word must have at least one tile covering the center space.

Once the player has deployed the tiles, they automatically receive new ones equivalent to the amount they used in the turn. When the first player’s turn ends, the next player’s turn begins. This goes on until the end game.

If a player is unable to form a word with the tiles they have on hand, they may pass the turn. You can pass by selecting Skip on the bottom right corner of the game screen.

Scoring

Each tile has a corresponding point value based on its rarity. Common letters like A, E, and S are worth 1 point each while uncommon letters like Q are worth 10 points. Words have a base value that is based on the sum of every letter used to make it. Blank tiles, as versatile as they are, have no point value. You can also add to pre-existing words and receive all the points from all the letters of the word you formed.

The total value of the word itself is based on where it appears and colored square tiles it covers. The word that covers the star at the center space is worth double its initial value. Blue squares double the value of letter placed above them, while green squares triple their value. Orange and red squares act as multipliers for the word’s total score. Orange squares double a word’s score while the much rarer red scores triple it.

The scores stack up, so you can easily gain a considerable number of points by deploying a specific word in the right spot. This applies to the Remember, the bonus squares can only be used once.

End Game Moves

The game continues until the following conditions are ment:

• There are no more tiles in the tiles bag.
• Both players skips a turn twice.

The game deducts the value of the points of the remaining tiles on each players tray from the players’ scores (players who clear all their tiles are spared this penalty). The player who has the highest score at the very end wins.

Advanced Playing Tips & Strategy

General Tips

We generally recommend an aggressive strategy where you go for longer words. The longer the word, the more points it’s worth. More tiles deployed at a turn also lets you refresh your deck with new tiles and increases the odds of you getting high-value tiles over your opponent. More tiles for you also means fewer tiles for your opponent in general.

In addition, a longer word at the beginning is a sound opening strategy. You automatically gain a double word score bonus at the starting space, so take advantage of word length to create an early lead. Longer words also allow you to extend your possible play area. This, in turn will allow you to plan your moves so you can reach the bonus squares sooner. Seize the opportunity to include high-value tiles and bonus squares whenever you can.

An alternate and more conservative playing style is to save crucial (e.g. useful, blank, high-value) tiles as you can while deploying the common, lower-value ones early. This can help you build up to truly impressive long words.

Toward the end of the game, you could consider swapping out hard-to-play letters such as X if you can’t find a way to play them. This will then pass the buck to your opponent, who would be stuck with a letter they can’t play. Be sure to do this only when you’re sure no other word can be formed.

If your opponent can’t move, but you can, consider choosing a move that retains this situation and keep it going for as long as you can. As long as they keep skipping, you can earn a large score lead against them.

Defensive Tactics

Be wary when bringing the red squares into play. When you make a word close to these squares, it could open up a chance for your opponent to make a new word on it. They will get a sizeable number of points if they get to it first regardless of word length.

Be careful when laying down words that can be easily extended. Your opponent may seize the opportunity to extend the word with a suffix or a hook before you do. If you have reason to believe they can extend the word themselves, consider waiting for the opportunity to play the whole extended word at once.

Short & Sweet

Conversely, try to learn as few short valid words in English as you can. These short words can bolster your score when forming longer words as well as dispose of tiles in odd places when you’re otherwise out of moves. Many short words include basic interjections (uhm, ah, eh) or spelled out letters in Latin or Greek (Zee, Xi, Chi).

Lengthening Words

You have three valid options to change words already present in the board:

• Pluralizing words, often by adding S at the end.
• Adding affixes. Suffixes, for instance, allow you to create past tense words (-ED), present participles (-ING), and comparative adjectives (-ER, -EST). Prefixes (UN-, RE-, IN-, DE-), meanwhile, help you alter the words altogether.
• Hooks. These are single letters that alter the entire word.

Of these, the singular S tile is the most versatile as it allows you to pluralize words while creating entirely new ones next to them. A properly deployed word using S can net you a lot of points in a single move in the right conditions. That said, use the S tile wisely and save it whenever you can; you only get 4 of them.

Hooks are a lot more complicated, but are extremely useful when deployed properly. These often use high-value letters like Y. A hook often makes it hard to create new words from the same set of letters, which can stop your opponent from lengthening a word already on the board.

Playing Q

Q, worth 10 points, is one of the hardest letter tiles to play in the game. The tricky issue with the letter is that most English words with it require a secondary letter, U, to adequately play. You may be required to hold onto a U when you do get the Q just to be able to deploy it properly in the late game.

This can be remedied by taking advantage of the handful of valid words in English, many of which are loanwords from various languages:

• Albanian: Qindar/Qintar
• Arabic: Faqir, Qadi, Qaid, Qat
• English: Tranq, Qwerty
• Hebrew: Qabalah, Sheqel
• Persian: Qanat
• Phoenician: Qoph
• Zulu: Mbaqanga

Educational Aspects

This game encourages players to expand their English language vocabulary. To gain an edge, they not only must tap into a broad array of short words but also a range of seldom-used loanwords.

Player Age Recommendations

This game is suited for players school-aged and above. We recommend this for fans of competitive word games like Scrabble.