Hangman is a paper and pencil guessing game for two or more players. One player thinks of a word, phrase or sentence and the other(s) tries to guess it by suggesting letters within a certain number of guesses.
Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downward in columns, and be included in a standard dictionary or lexicon.
Upwords is a board game invented by Elliot Rudell and originally published by the Milton Bradley Company, now a division of Hasbro. Worldwide marketing rights to Upwords have been licensed to Spin Master Inc. by Rudell Design, LLC as of 2018. Upwords is similar to Scrabble or Words With Friends, in that players build words using letter tiles on a gridded gameboard. The point of difference is that in Upwords letters can be stacked on top of other letters already on the gameboard to create new words. The higher the stack of letters, the more points are scored. This typically makes words built in later turns of the game more valuable than earlier words, increasing play intensity and adding a level of strategy unique to Upwords. The memorization of two-letter words is considered a useful skill in this game.
Word games are spoken, board, or video games often designed to test ability with language or to explore its properties.
Jotto is a logic-oriented word game played with two players, a writing implement, and a piece of paper with the alphabet on it. Each player writes a secret word and attempts to guess the other player's word.
Scrabble is an American television game show based upon the Scrabble board game. Muriel Green of Exposure Unlimited developed the idea for a television game show based upon the board game concept. During 1983, Green convinced Selchow and Righter, who at that time owned the Scrabble board game, to license Exposure Unlimited to produce the game show. Exposure Unlimited co-produced the show with Reg Grundy Productions, and licensed the show to NBC. Scrabble aired on NBC from July 2, 1984, to March 23, 1990, and again from January 18 to June 11, 1993. Chuck Woolery hosted the program. Jay Stewart was the announcer for the first year. Charlie Tuna replaced him in the summer of 1985, for the remainder of the original run and the entirety of the 1993 revival.
Chain Reaction is an American television game show created by Bob Stewart, in which players compete to form chains composed of two-word phrases.
Lexicant is a paper and pencil word game for two players. A letter is written on a sheet of paper, and each player takes turns adding a letter either to the beginning or the end of this ever-growing word stem. Any word-stem a player creates must form part of a valid English word, without actually being a word itself. The first player to create a word loses.
In the game of Scrabble, a challenge is the act of one player questioning the validity of one or more words formed by another player on the most recent turn. In double challenge, if one or more of the challenged words is not in the agreed-upon dictionary or word source, the challenged player loses her/his turn. If all challenged words are acceptable, the challenger loses his/her turn.
Tile tracking is a technique most commonly associated with the game of Scrabble and similar word games. It refers to the practice of keeping track of letters played on the game board, typically by crossing letters off a score sheet or tracking grid as the tiles are played. Tracking tiles can be an important aid to strategy, especially during the endgame when there are no tiles left to draw, where careful tracking allows each player to deduce the remaining unseen letters on the opponent's final rack. The marking off of each letter from a pre-printed tracking grid as the tiles are played is a standard feature of tournament play.
Family Game Night was an American television game show based on Hasbro's family of board games and EA's video game franchise of the same name. The show was hosted by Todd Newton. Burton Richardson announced for the first two seasons, until he was replaced by Stacey J. Aswad for the third season, and then Andrew Kishino beginning in the fourth season. The 60-minute program debuted on October 10, 2010, on The Hub, formerly Discovery Kids. The network would become Discovery Family on October 13, 2014; it was previewed on October 9, 2010, on its sister channel, TLC. Seasons 1 and 2 each contained 26(1) and 30(2) episodes. Seasons 3, 4 and 5 each contained 15 episodes. Season two premiered on Friday, September 2, 2011, and additional games were added. The games added to the second season included Cranium Brain Breaks, Green Scream, Ratuki Go-Round, Simon Flash, Operation Sam Dunk, Trouble Pop Quiz, and Spelling Bee. However, games from the previous season were still kept.
Words with Friends is a multiplayer word game developed by Newtoy. Players take turns building words crossword-puzzle style in a manner similar to the classic board game Scrabble. The rules of the two games are similar, but Words with Friends is not associated with the Scrabble brand. Up to 40 games can be played simultaneously using push notifications to alert players when it is their turn. Players may look up friends either by username or through Facebook, or be randomly assigned an opponent through "Smart Match". Players can also find potential opponents using Community Match.
Chess with Friends is a multiplayer asynchronous chess game developed by Zynga with Friends, which also developed Words with Friends and Hanging with Friends. It was one of the first iPhone games to take an asynchronous approach to multiplayer. Released in November 2008 and published by Zynga, the game is available on iOS and, since 2014, Android.
NimbleBit, LLC is an American developer and publisher of iOS and Android mobile apps. It was co-founded by brothers David and Ian Marsh. Some of their popular titles include Pocket Frogs, Tiny Tower, and Pocket Planes.
Word Streak is a word game developed by Zynga with Friends for iOS and Android and released in January 2012. Gameplay is similar to that of Boggle—players try to find as many words as possible in a jumbled 4x4 grid of letters by connecting adjacent letters to form words within a two-minute time frame - though with extra features and a different scoring system. Words may be formed vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. Scramble with Friends is one of the top ranking games in the iOS application store, available as both a free ad-supported version and an ad-less paid version. Scramble with Friends replaced Scramble Challenge at the end of 2011, but did not retain the solitaire option of the latter.
Draw Something is a video game developed by OMGPop, launched on February 6, 2012. It won a Flurry App Spotlight Award in 2012. In the first five weeks after its launching, the game was downloaded 20 million times. On March 21, 2012, both Draw Something and OMGPop were bought by the gaming company Zynga for $180 million. The game's popularity peaked on the day of the sale, and the number of daily active users tumbled from 15 million to 10 million by early May.
Fightin' Words is a multi-player, multi-platform word game developed by InterWorks, Inc. The game was designed as a mobile software application for mobile phone users. In the game, players compete against each other by creating words on a Scrabble style game board. The game was first developed for BlackBerry, as the BlackBerry App World lacked Words With Friends style games. The game is now available for BlackBerry and Android systems, allowing for cross-platform gameplay.
Ruzzle is a mobile game developed by Swedish gaming company MAG Interactive and was first published in the Apple Store in March 2012. Ruzzle is inspired by the classic board games Boggle and Scrabble. The game is highly social and based on online matches, requiring the player to find an opponent who can be appointed randomly by the system from online users, chosen from a list of friends set by the player, or selected from amongst their Facebook friends. Ruzzle is now available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phones.
Candy Crush Saga is a free-to-play match-three puzzle video game released by King on April 12, 2012, for Facebook; other versions for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Windows 10 followed. It is a variation of their browser game Candy Crush.
Ellen's Game of Games, also known as Game of Games and stylized as ellen's GAME OF GAMES, is an American television game show that aired on NBC. In March 2017, NBC ordered six hour-long episodes of the series. Ellen DeGeneres serves as host, while Stephen "tWitch" Boss appears as announcer/sidekick. The series is based on game segments from DeGeneres' daytime talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show. The series premiered on December 18, 2017. On February 18, 2020, DeGeneres announced on The Ellen DeGeneres Show that the series was renewed for a fourth season, which began airing on October 6, 2020. In January 2022, the series was canceled after four seasons.
