Game: Typo

Thread: Re: Cwali vs University letter distributions

Kwyjibo — 2008-04-22T04:28:47+00:00

I have to find a copy of Probe now that will let me try the Cwali distribution. It looks so much more playable with the increase in vowels and decrease in consonants. Thanks a lot!

Thread: Re: Cwali vs University letter distributions

steveoliverc — 2008-04-21T14:55:20+00:00

I'm surprised by how many differences there are! I knew the University edition had the Q, X, and Y different. Also, it plays differently than the Cwali edition (it's slower and more rows are taken), but I didn't realize there were this many differences in the letters.

Thread: University VS Cwali letter distributions

steveoliverc — 2008-04-21T14:51:24+00:00

....UNIV......CWALI......DIFF
4 ........ 6 ........ -2
2 ........ 1 ........ +1
2 ........ 1 ........ +1
3 ........ 3
5 ........ 9 ........ -4
2 ........ 1 ........ +1
2 ........ 2
3 ........ 2 ........ +1
4 ........ 5 ........ -1
1 ........ 1
1 ........ 1
2 ........ 2
2 ........ 2
3 ........ 5 ........ -2
4 ........ 5 ........ -1
2 ........ 2
1 ........ 0 ........ +1
3 ........ 4 ........ -1
4 ........ 3 ........ +1
4 ........ 3 ........ +1
2 ........ 3 ........ -1
1 ........ 1
2 ........ 1 ........ +1
1 ........ 0 ........ +1
3 ........ 0 ........ +3
1 ........ 1

Thread: Cwali vs University letter distributions

Kwyjibo — 2008-04-19T19:55:55+00:00

I picked up the University Games edition of Typo, but haven't grown all that fond of it. I've read a fair bit about the letter distribution in the Cwali edition being better. Would anyone mind posting the Cwali distribution to compare to this University one?

4
2
2
3
5
2
2
3
4
1
1
2
2
3
4
2
1
3
4
4
2
1
2
1
3
1

Thread: Re: Ditch the hourglass, play with a stopwatch and a die

Martin Ralya — 2008-03-14T04:38:52+00:00

I can see why the game would progress differently without the die, and I'll have to try it the other way. Thanks for the suggestion!

Thread: Re: Ditch the hourglass, play with a stopwatch and a die

steveoliverc — 2008-03-12T01:10:53+00:00

I also like Typo a lot.

Not sure about the d6 though -- sometimes you have a pretty good idea if someone is going to play the same letter as you (based on what's on the table, and what's been played) and knowing in advance who is going to go first is important in choosing your letter. If you know someone else will go first if they choose the same letter, you might want to pick a letter further down in the alphabet.

BTW, if you really like the game, try playing it with the original version -- the letter distribution is a little different. No sand timer, either!

Thread: Ditch the hourglass, play with a stopwatch and a die

Martin Ralya — 2008-03-10T16:56:01+00:00

I played typo last night with my wife, Alysia, and our friends Brianne and Sam. It'd been a few months since we'd last played it, and I'd forgotten how much fun it is.

We played the way Sam and Brianne first introduced the game to us: using a stopwatch instead of the hourglass, and with a d6 on hand to use for rolling off when multiple players choose the same letter. As Sam pointed out, since the hourglass is there to keep the game moving, why would you want to waste time waiting for it to run down when someone takes a fast turn? The stopwatch does a much better job.

Alysia and Brianne took an early lead, while Sam and I kept getting stuck with cards. One great thing about this particular player mix is that all four of us have good vocabularies, so we rarely miss a chance to play our letters when there's a viable play available. That makes for a cutthrdoat game, which is fun.

Sam and I closed the gap in the late game, keeping Brianne and Alysia from going out (once through cooperation, which I'm not used to seeing in Typo), but in the end we couldn't pull it out. Alysia won, leaving Brianne with one or two cards, Sam with three and myself with four.

Typo fills a unique niche: filler word game. I love word games, and there's always a place for filler on game nights. Its few mechanics are well designed, and I like the way that you have to balance turn order with ensuring that you have a viable play for your letter. All in all, a fun session (and a nice, light follow-up to Puerto Rico).

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Capitaine Grappin — 2007-12-11T04:04:33+00:00

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Capitaine Grappin — 2007-10-25T14:06:06+00:00

rulebook (in french)

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Capitaine Grappin — 2007-10-25T14:05:40+00:00

Box contents

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Capitaine Grappin — 2007-10-25T14:05:11+00:00

Sand timer

Thread: Re: Typo Review

daw65 — 2007-09-25T20:43:41+00:00

The University Games rules were covered in this review

Thread: Re: Q, X, and Y

cgund — 2007-07-04T19:30:37+00:00

steveoliverc wrote:

So how did you enjoy the game?

Meh. I didn't love love it, but it was OK. I'm almost never happy with word games anymore. I am really quite good at them so they don't see much play around here because it's always really lopsided, but even so, they're not my favorites. They seem less gamey to me than other kinds of games.

But, I've only played once. So who knows. Also it was a gift from my husband so I'll make sure it gets to the table with some frequency because how nice of him to try to encourage and add to my hobby.

Thread: Re: Q, X, and Y

steveoliverc — 2007-07-04T12:54:30+00:00

cgund wrote:
My deck has one each of Z, X, and Q, as well as three Ys. It's the University Games version if that matters.

Yes, the new University Games edition does contain these letters. I was referring to the original edition published by Cwali.

I played the University Games edition a month or so ago and was surprised to see these letters. I only played one game with it so not sure exactly how these letters change the game, but it sure seemed like more people couldn't complete words and had to take cards. And maybe even people were a little more frustrated with the game. But like I said, that's only once with the new deck.

But one thing I liked so much about Typo when it was first published by Cwali (and indeed I rate it a 10 because of how much it got played) was that the game was quick and fun, and although it was a word game, it was so much faster and less frustrating than Scrabble. I don't think I've played Scrabble more than a couple of times since discovering Typo. When I played Typo with the X, Z, and Q, and started seeing more frustrated looks around the table, I thought, This is a lot more like Scrabble!

I don't own the new edition so I can't compare the letter distribution to the original version, but I suspect there are other differences.

So how did you enjoy the game?

Thread: Re: Q, X, and Y

cgund — 2007-07-04T06:26:55+00:00

Hmm! I just got this game for my birthday a week ago, and we have played it once. I know for sure there was a Y, and there was a Z...hell, lemme just go grab it.

Ok, back. My deck has one each of Z, X, and Q, as well as three Ys. It's the University Games version if that matters.

Thread: Re: Typo Review

otha62 — 2007-06-16T14:41:45+00:00

daw65 wrote:
Just a quick comment: This review is of the Cwali Games edition of Typo. It's useful to point out that these rules are different from the University Games edition of Typo.

I wish I knew why the rules were changed.

Thanks for pointing that out. Can you expand upon the rule changes???

Thread: Re: Typo Review

daw65 — 2007-06-11T18:50:45+00:00

Just a quick comment: This review is of the Cwali Games edition of Typo. It's useful to point out that these rules are different from the University Games edition of Typo.

I wish I knew why the rules were changed.

Thread: Re: A Nifty 'Costs-Money' Game Developed from a Free Game

daw65 — 2007-06-11T18:50:04+00:00

Just a quick comment: This review is of the University Games edition of Typo. It's useful to point out that these rules are different from the Cwali Games edition of Typo.

I wish I knew why the rules were changed.

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KSensei — 2007-06-10T04:03:46+00:00

Whenever you play a word game you have to make a shameless attempt to promote BGG!

Thread: A Nifty 'Costs-Money' Game Developed from a Free Game

smattathias — 2007-03-07T06:11:56+00:00

Created by Corne Van Moorsel, Typo is a solid addition to the word game genre.

In Typo, two to six players (although you could play solitaire) are dealt a number of letter cards. Letter cards have their frequency written on the card and are in the style of an old-fashioned typewriter. Players must play their cards one by one onto ongoing word rows in the middle of the play area.

To start, four cards are dealt face up in the center of the table. Each player chooses a card, simultaneously reveals it, and then places their card one by one. Turn order is determined by which letter is closest to A. Ties (that is two or more players revealing the same card) are broken by any means you choose (which is vague, but so long as you go into it knowing that, then it's not the end of the world, or word as the case may be). A play is legal only if the card can be added to a word row AND if the clump of letters can legally start a word. If a player is unable to play a letter, he or she takes half (rounded up) of the biggest word row available and discards the rest.

For example, if the letter L is in the center, a player who flipped an E may place it in front and say ELATION, or they may play it after and say LETTER. In both cases, a word must be associated with the play. You couldn't, for example, add the E to the front of the L and say LABEL. This little rule more or less determines the strategy of the game, both when trying to figure out your plays and stumping other people's play.

The first person to get rid of their cards wins.

Before going on, I would like to point out a free game that is so similar to this, that it begs pointing out. "Ghost" invented by an anonymous word nut is a simple two or more player game in which people add letters to a word fragment without completing a legal English word. The first to complete the word loses. Best of three or five wins.

Typo plays off the same idea, but it definitely adds a lot more. First off, both games have the unique characteristic of being a word game in which letters are added without actually making a final word. This enables people who aren't good at anagramming (a la Scrabble) to actually make a decent go at a word game and enjoy it. As per differences, it's really nice to have several words going at once in Typo. Choices are abundant, and it's nice not to be herded into a single direction like in Ghost (of course, that's a legitimate strategy in Ghost). The simultaneous revelation is also a great mechanic because you can gamble when you want to play the harder-to-play letters (Q, X, W, Z, etc.) and when to play easier-to-get-rid-of letters (A, E, I, etc.). You can use that mechanic to your advantage and come out ahead with a little luck.

I also experimented with a solitaire version. In this version, I played with the rule that you have to add a card to each group before expanding any more (no group can get more than a card ahead of the smallest group), and that makes planning your plays interesting. With a time limit (what fun is it to plan out everything?) involved, this version can be a great test of your abilities.

All in all, Typo is definitely worth a few games. Its re-playability is high as a filler game, low as the main course. For word lovers, I highly recommend it.

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droolster — 2007-02-06T21:56:46+00:00

Typo, University Games English edition. A bigger box.

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cleonhard — 2007-02-06T08:33:22+00:00

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pepzaza — 2006-03-21T19:16:40+00:00

Dutch Version of University Games

Thread: Typo Review

otha62 — 2006-03-14T01:41:14+00:00

Overview
Typo is a card game for 2 to 6 players that I can best describe as a cross between 6 Nimmt! and Scrabble. It was designed by Corné van Moorsel and is published by Cwali. In this game, you try to play cards from your hand, forming potential words, while avoiding taking cards as a penalty. Each letter card has a point value assigned to it which counts against you if taken when penalized. The player with the least amount of penalty points wins the game.

Out of the Box
The game comes in a plasic card container with 64 cards (representing each letter of the alphabet from A to Z) and a small rulebook. Play time is listed as at 30 minutes; our games thus far have lasted a little longer. The artwork on the cards is functional and informational. There is no theme.

Set Up
Set up is quick and simple. Deal out 12 cards, face down, to each player. Then deal 4 cards face up, forming a display of 4 rows in the middle of the table; each face up card begins as the first card in its respective row. A dictionary needs to be handy; initially, the person randomly chosen to start the game will be given the dictionary.

Game Play
During a turn, players will select one of the letter cards from their hand and place it face down in front of themselves. Once this is done, all players flip up their cards, revealing them simultaneously. Players then play their cards against one of the face up card rows. This is done alphabetically to begin with; players playing an ‘A’ would play their card before players with a ‘C’. Card play alternates in the second round; for example, a player with a ‘Z’ card would play before a player with an ‘S’. If two people play the same letter, the person sitting closer (clockwise) to the keeper of the dictionary plays first.

When playing a card against a row, you must play your letter either at the beginning of the row or at the end, and pronounce a word beginning with those letters; if you can do this successfully, the added letter stays on that row for the next round. For example, say you played an ‘A’ and the cards in the four rows were ‘APP’, ‘GAI’, ‘ADO’, and ‘ZER’. You’d have at least two valid plays; you could either place your ‘A’ after the ‘APP’ and say “APPARITION” or you could play it before the ‘GAI’ and pronounce “AGAIN.” If you have a card that won’t form a potential word in any row, you have to take every card in the longest row, with each card’s point value counting against you as penalty points. The card you could not play will now be the first card in the row you just cleared. When a player is forced to take a row, the dictionary is passed to that player.

As in Scrabble, you can challenge a word; the keeper of the dictionary will look it up and if it’s not listed, that person must clear the longest row and take an additional 2 penalty points on top of that. However, if it is listed, then the challenged player gets 2 positive points. Once each player has played all cards, that round is over. All penalty points are totaled and recorded. All cards (except for the ones in the display rows) are shuffled and dealt out for the next round. The game ends after the second round, and the player with the lowest number of penalty points over the 2 rounds is the winner.

Strategy
While Typo can be a very random and chaotic game, there are a couple of things you can do to increase your chances somewhat. When possible, try holding on to letters that are more commonly used (‘S’, ‘E’, ‘A’, etc.) until later in the round, since they should be easier to place. Try getting rid of rare letters (‘Z’, ‘Q’, ‘X’, etc.) as early as possible, as they could be disastrous to use later in the round when the display rows will be longer. Even if they don’t play, if you get rid of ‘em early, the rows you're forced to take will be shorter. Also if the rows are getting longer, and there’s only a one or two that you can play against, try to use a letter that will let you play before your opponents. For example, say it’s the first round and your only play is off of a row that reads “APPL,” however you have two cards that’ll play, an ‘E’ (APPLE) or a ‘Y’ (APPLY). You’d want to play the ‘E’ since that would increase your chances. If you played the ‘Y’ and one of your opponents, looking at the same row, played an ‘I’ (APPLICATION), then he/she would get to play before you and you’d get stuck having to take a row; but playing the ‘E’ would allow you to move first in that situation.

Conclusions
While I find Typo to be an interesting and worthwhile card game, especially if you like word games, I still prefer 6 Nimmt!. I always feel like I at least have a chance of avoiding a lot of points while playing 6 Nimmt!, but there are situations in Typo that can often happen when I know I’m going to take it in the shorts. The game is also slanted towards people who have a broad vocabulary, so beware of playing this with English majors. Even so, the game is educational (you’ll learn new words), has some tough decisions to make, and has its fun moments as well. It might go down a point with further play, but since my wife likes word games and will play this one with me, I currently rate Typo a 6.

Thread: Start-Player Variant

Verkisto — 2006-02-13T17:31:39+00:00

In the rules, the start player is determined randomly, and is the person who keeps the dictionary. Whenever two identical letters are played, the person closest to the start player, clockwise, is the person who wins the tie and places first. The dictionary only changes hands when someone challenges a word successfully, at which time the challenger receives the dictionary and becomes the new start player. Fine.

I just don't like it all that much.

Here's my idea: Deal 12 cards to all players, as outlined in the rules, but before playing any cards to the center of the table, each player selects one card to determine the start player. These are placed face-down and revealed simultaneously. Whoever has the card closest to A (or Z, in round two) is the start player for that round, and all ties will be broken clockwise, starting with him. These cards will remain face-up before the players for the round, and they will not count toward their negative score at the end of the round.

If two or more players select the same letter, then they cannot be considered the start player, and their cards go into their score pile to count at the end of the round.

At the end of the round, all letters are gathered and shuffled to be used in the second round. Players will have to select and reveal a card again to determine the start player for this round.

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rynelf — 2005-11-23T22:06:29+00:00

An assortment of Typo rules booklets

Thread: allow rearranging letters in row to which you're adding a card

geekette — 2005-09-23T03:58:58+00:00

When adding a letter to a row, you can rearrange the letters in the row to which your letter is added.

Example:

rows before your play:

1. ERGO (...nomics)
2. MNE (...monic)
3. SOG (...gy)
4. ZOO (...keeper)

you played an H card.
you could add it to row 3 and rearrange the cards:

3. GHOS (...tly)

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fortinm — 2005-09-19T12:16:50+00:00

Components (French/Dutch version)

Thread: Re: Typo with a Quiddler deck?

Silverback — 2005-08-20T04:51:25+00:00

So how did it go?

Thread: Re:Typo w/UpWords variant

RPardoe — 2005-03-26T06:31:33+00:00

Thanks for the clarification, it all makes sense now.

Interestingly - my dictionary lists both LO and BO as words, so guess both count as "complete" words. Thus I guess LO could be come BO after all.

Thread: Re:Typo w/UpWords variant

jody — 2005-03-26T04:54:10+00:00

RPardoe (#461825),

Sorry for any confusion.

The way we play this variant is that a complete 'valid' word can only be changed. The initial 4 letters placed at the start of the game can eventually be replaced after they become part of a complete word. LO cannot become B0.

Regarding the total scores, yes, we sometimes will add the # on the cards as opposed to the total number of cards picked-up. Again this little variant is established and agreed upon at the beginning of the game.

Thread: Re:Typo w/UpWords variant

RPardoe — 2005-03-26T00:18:39+00:00

Thanks for the clarification, but as TYPO doesn't have complete words, I am looking at the starting grid.

4 letters are dealt out in a column. In normal TYPO, letters are added to the front/back of those letters stating words that start with the letter combination.

In your variant, what prevents people from just playing their card on top of one of these letters and perpetually having 1 letter to select from/with.

Or am I missing an assumption - you can UpWord only if a valid word appears on the cards. In other words, LOOK can become BOOK, but LO can't become BO or L can't become B. That is the what I am concerned about in this variant.

he would then be picking up 6 cards total (COOK+B+L) with -15 points.
Umm, how do you get -15 points. You only get 1 penalty point per card taken in hand. So that should be -6 points. Similarly, your other example should be -9 points.

Can I assume you might be adding the numbers on the cards? If so, the numbers on the cards only count how many of that letter in the deck - they are not penalty points at all.

Thread: Re:Typo w/UpWords variant

jody — 2005-03-25T23:47:16+00:00

RPardoe (#461373),

I'm not sure I understand your question. We pretty much stick to the original rules for Typo other than 'spreading' a word outword, it can also go UpWords.

If you're familiar with the game UpWords, you simply change a letter of a previous word by placing or stacking a tile on top of the original or previous tile. For instance, the original word LOOK could change to BOOK by stacking the B card on top of the L, there by concealing it. On a players next turn they could then change BOOK to COOK. If a player then can't place a card and decides to take up the COOK row as the longest row, he would then be picking up 6 cards total (COOK+B+L) with -15 points.

Same goes for the word BEAD to LEAD to DEAD to DEED to SEED to SEEDS... if picked up as a 'can't connect my letters' penalty, the total cards in that row would be 9 with a -39 points. Ouch!

Just a little twist to add to a game that seems very open to many variants.

Thread: Re:Typo w/UpWords variant

RPardoe — 2005-03-25T05:37:13+00:00

Interesting variant, but....how do you prevent players from just laying their card on top of one of the initial cards? In this manner one need only think of a word that starts with the letter you play and no one ever "defaults".

Is this what you experienced in your games?

Thread: Typo w/UpWords variant

jody — 2005-03-24T13:17:12+00:00

We've been playing the heck out of Typo lately, it's so quick and easy to play. My younger son recently added an UpWords variant to the game by substituting letters and stacking the cards. changing the 'T' in TRAIN to a 'B' for BRAIN. Makes replacing your unplayable letter for the longest row of cards much more dangerous...

Thread: Re:Playing other games using a Typo deck

jayzen — 2005-03-09T15:46:58+00:00

You might want to check out the games linked from BGG "Lexicon" and "Letter Head". There's several word games there as well.

Thread: Playing other games using a Typo deck

steveoliverc — 2005-03-09T06:15:55+00:00

I've recently started looking at some word games using the Alpha Playing Cards, which is similar to a Typo deck although with a few major differences: the cards have point values, the vowels appear 2 to a card, there are 2 wild cards, and the entire alphabet is there (including Q, X, and Y). Despite the differences, I think a few of the games written for the Alpha Playing Cards could be played with Typo cards. For example, the expert version of the Word Solitaire game. There are also word game versions of Lost Cities and Schotten Totten which look very fun, and I'd like to try those. I suspect that the "single" vowels in Typo will make the games more challenging than when played with the Alpha Playing Cards and their "double" vowel cards. The link to the Alpha Playing Card games is: http://www.tjgames.com/alphagames.html

Thread: Session Report

daw65 — 2005-03-07T07:22:50+00:00

For our final game we were looking for something quick and light for a closer. We considered Transamerica, but chose instead the word game Typo.

The game, unfortunately, started slowly and continued slowly, making it less than ideal as a quick filler. The first cards played were interesting, as everyone dumped their harder letters (k, v, z). It worked for everyone but Dave, who had to eat four cards thanks to his "z". Fairly early in this hand the only challenge of the game was made, as Jim played an "a" to "ap", making "apa", to begin "apalled". We challenged it, and he lost two points, since the word is spelled with two "p"s. In fact, everyone took some cards this hand, except Helen. She admitted afterwards that she had a pretty good hand, with not too many vowels, and consonants that were all pretty common, and she played them well, ending the hand with zero points. The high scorers were Carrie with 18 and Dave with 17.

In the second round, Carrie and DaveW got into a competition, taking words back and forth. Now, taking words affects the order that cards play if two players play the same card, and in fact on one round Helen and DaveW both played the same card. DaveW was set to go before Helen, but Carrie's card came first, and she was forced to take cards. That changed the ordering, allowing Helen to go first and play her card, and forcing DaveW to then take cards. It was that kind of game for Helen. Still, she didn't get off scot-free this second round, and in fact did manage to take points a few times, to finish the round with 14 points. Carrie, unfortunately, was scoring often, and exceeded her 18 point round one with a 19 point round 2. Dave reversed his trend, taking no points in the second round. But it wasn't enough, as his 17 points from round one were more than Helen's 14 points from round 2, letting Helen hold on for the win.

Thread: Session Report

RPardoe — 2005-01-25T13:38:08+00:00

We finished Big City just a bit before Buried Treasure was finished so we recombined into a group of 6 to try Typo again with the correct rules. Last week's session noted that we were taking any row (usually the shortest) if we couldn't place a letter. The rules state that the longest row must be taken.

With the correct rules, the game was a lot more fluid. Most of the time, the rows had 3 or 4 cards on them with the occasional foray to 5 or 6 letters. This allowed for much more varied play wherein a letter might be placed in one of 2 rows when selected. The trouble is that other letters placed on those rows might eliminate one of the possible options when a letter was selected. Another change this game, less bluffing of words. It was bad enough to face the prospect of 4 or 5 penalty points without wishing to risk the additional 2 for a challenged word. In fact, only 1 word was challenged: VARIEN(ce). Not found in our dictionary, this cost Helen 2 penalty points.

As predicted by last week's session, with more penalty cards drawn, the second round has more cards in play and lasts longer. With 6 players, we had a 10 card deal for the first round and an 8 card deal in the second round. I also noticed that when given a choice of which row to take as penalty, there was some thought to the letters given to the second round. When wanting to take JERK or SAND as a penalty, SAND was taken as there is more that might be done with those letters than throwing the J and K back into the mix.

And my suspicion that scores might be a bit tighter was confirmed. Scores at the end were remarkably close:

Dave 0+15 = 15
Helen 10+2+3 = 15 (and probably wishing not to have those 2 penalty points)
Sterling: 11 + 4 = 15
Lawrence: 7 + 9 = 16
Rich 12 + 5 = 17
Carrie: 12 + 16 = 28

But we did realize that this game requires just a bit too much thinking to be a closer. Perhaps it was a bit of fatigue after so many other games, but we started to go a bit slow towards the end. TYPO is a game I would like to add to my collection and a game I can certainly see played as an opener. It might be a bit too long to be a filler between games, but certainly makes an ideal lunch hour game. My opinion of the game shot up significantly compared to last week's opinion. I am glad to find my concerns from the first playing were eliminated in this second (correct) playing. Unlike other word games, one has a lot more flexibility as one only needs to form part of a word and not the entire word. Of course, this isn't always easy, but it does eliminate that waiting for the "perfect letter" or "perfect spot" to play word.

In the end, we managed to play 4 "B" games and 5 games in total - quite an impressive session. I look forward to next week when the "C" games make it to the table.

Thread: Session Report

steveoliverc — 2005-01-24T14:10:58+00:00

Last night was family game night at my daughter's school. My daughter went off with another friend who taught her how to play Stratego, and I was asked to join a Scrabble game but we couldn't find four players so I suggested Typo which has replaced Scrabble for me anyway as my favorite word game. We played it in teams, myself with one of my daughter's friends, against two of the boys from their class. I've played Typo before with children and have been impressed with the words they come up with, and last night was no exception. VULNERABLE and ANOMALY were a couple that I recall. They get pretty frustrated when they can't make up a word, and that's when the phony words start coming out in spades, which gave us all a lot of good laughs. I let everyone get one phony but after that we stuck to the rules. We ended up looking up one word (we borrowed someone's OSPD) and we played both rounds and just had a great time.

Thread: Session Report

Sal M — 2005-01-18T20:29:07+00:00

The group (Holly, Casey, Kristen, Amy, and I) convened at Holly's place as is becoming the habit on Saturday nights.

We decided to start off light (not unusual for us), and I suggested Typo.

As has been said before, the game play here feels like Scrabble and 6 Nimmt had a head-on collision. Each player selects a card and plays it face down. Everyone reveals simultaneously, and then cards get played in alphabetical order in the first round, reverse alpha. in the second.

Long story short, my card stunk (in the first round I had both the "V" and the "Z"!), and my timing didn't help me either. I don't remember the scores, but Kristen won, followed by Holly, Casey, Amy, and I. The general concensus was that the order of scores indicated something about overall vocabulary, but I disagreed with this analysis

With the right group, this is a fun game. Play fast, don't overthink it, and laugh at the funny word possibilities. Helping people with difficult letter placement keeps it loose.

In the wrong crowd, this can drag. With our group tonight, we had lots of fun!

My current rating: 7

Thread: Session Report

jm100 — 2005-01-18T20:29:07+00:00

Since we had just played a game of 6 Nimmt!, it was easy to convince this group of non-gamers to try Typo. I’ve normally found that newbies prefer playing the same game repeatedly to learning a new game, but the transition here was seamless. All I had to say was “Want to try a variant on 6 Nimmt!? I have a game that’s basically 6 Nimmt! with words.” Everyone seemed up for it, and we were off.

The one trick to remember in making the transition from 6 Nimmt! to Typo is the difference in taking rows. In 6 Nimmt!, the shortest rows are taken, while in Typo, the longest rows are. If you were to take the shortest rows in Typo, the game would stagnate, as all card movement would take place around the shortest rows.

This game takes a bit more thought than 6 Nimmt! because you have to think of words when playing cards and on the fly when playing them. In this regard, I’ve heard two criticisms of the game: 1) that the game should be played quickly, but takes too much thought to play quickly; and 2) a player who can’t think of an obvious word is put on the spot while everyone smirks at him or her. We didn’t experience either issue, in part because of the friendly way in which we played. Generally, if a player couldn’t think of a word for their letter, and a word existed, someone helped that person out with a pointer in the right direction or even a word suggestion. This kept turns moving relatively quickly - not as quickly as 6 Nimmt! – but pretty quickly because four minds are better than one. And no one was ever put on the spot. The downside of this approach, however, was that suggesting a word for one person often meant that the next person couldn’t place his or her letter. But such are the breaks, I guess.

Our game went relatively smoothly. I got hit by a few zingers – including being forced to take the word “hematomas.” That pretty much put me out of the running. But I was also helping everyone else along and having fun. In one case, the only two buildable rows had the constructions “far” and “sor.” When one player struggled over his placement of a “p,” I suggested “psoriasis.” This made him very happy, but made my girlfriend very unhappy, because she was hoping to play her “r” on the end of “sor.” Luckily, my recollection of the word “farrier” saved her game - and our relationship. K. won the game, with the lowest score in both rounds.

The game seemed to go over pretty well, about as well as 6 Nimmt! But some criticism was directed at leaving the rows on the table between the two rounds. Some of this group thought that made the start of the second round too difficult, and recommended clearing the table between the two rounds. Still, it was well-liked overall.

Personally, I like this game. The game has a good deal of luck to it, so wordsmiths will not automatically win (especially playing with our friendly variant). It's a nice creative spin on 6 Nimmt! Recommended for a change of pace, for 6 Nimmt! fans, and for word-game fans.

Thread: Re:Session Report

daw65 — 2005-01-13T06:39:13+00:00

steveoliverc (#76343),
We just played it again (look for Rich's report upcoming), and this time with the correct rules, and it made a world of difference! I can see this becoming quite possible for those who like word games.

Thread: Re:Session Report

steveoliverc — 2005-01-10T19:50:41+00:00

RPardoe (#76208),
I made EXACTLY the same mistake the first time I played Typo, namely, we thought the players had a choice which row to remove if they can't play a letter, so of course every picks the shortest row and those long rows get very static. The rules are written correctly, but maybe they should have made this a little more obvious. I wondered about because at the end of the game, everyone complained about it, so I checked the rules and sure enough I had missed that part. Too bad, too, because my wife was playing and she doesn't play a lot of games with us, so this reinforced for her exactly why she doesn't play a lot of games. (Note to self: Play a game a few times before inviting the wife!) I played it soon thereafter (correctly!) with my game group and it went great -- completely different game. So hopefully you'll get a chance to play Typo again soon, and I'm glad you caught your misinterpretation of the rules. This game has been enjoyed by everyone I've shown it to (even people who don't prefer word games), and it deserves to be a lot higher in the BGG ratings than it is.

Thread: Session Report

RPardoe — 2005-01-10T14:22:26+00:00

Having completed our "A" game of the week, we still had about 1 hour left and brought TYPO to the table. Keeping with our A-Z gaming theme, this is a card game wherein each card represents 1 letter of the alphabet. A deck of 64 cards is dealt equally to each of the players and the remaining 4 cards are placed in column in the middle of the table. Each player will select a letter from their hand and attempt to place it at the front or back of a row such that the letters from the start of a word. So in a sense, the game combines aspects of 6 Nimmt! and Scrabble. The scrabble part is obvious as players are trying to form the start of legitimate words. The 6 Nimmt! aspect is in the card play. Each player will select a card from their hand and simultaneously reveal it. In the first round, the cards are played in alphabetical order, so card choice is not only a matter of what letters can form words with the cards on the table, but also when in the turn one is likely to play and what choices might remain. Another aspect shared with 6 Nimmt! - when a player can't form the start of word with their letter, they take a row of cards (with cards worth 1 negative point apiece).

I tend to be cautious about word games as one's vocabulary can play a key factor in the enjoyment of the game. But TYPO plays in such a quick manner and with the need just to start a word (not complete it) one can be a git more flexible and I found myself enjoying the game.

I thought I had one complaint about the card play though. Our game devolved into a situation wherein 3 of the 4 rows had grown in length and we were all playing to the shortest row. As a result, 3 out of the 4 rows were essentially not in play with the exception of single letter additions towards making DECOLONIZe and GRENADIER. This left the game with a very static feel and hope that the other players had common letters upon which to build words.

But when I checked out the publisher's website (http://www.cwali.com/typo/typo.htm), I discovered we had played incorrectly. When a player can't play their card, they do not have a choice of row to take as penalty (ala 6 Nimmt!). They must clear out the LONGEST row on the board as shown in the example in the above link. As a result, we would have cleared out DECOL and GRENA earlier in the game and had more options upon which to play. This would have been perhaps 5 or 6 additional penalty points to a player which might have tightened up the scores as we might have been less likely to bluff a word (modest penalty on top of our incorrect modest penalty).

Indirectly, this rule also impacts the second round as more cards are drawn into hand and are thus dealt out making for a longer lasting second round also. I do hope we get a chance to try this game again soon with the correct rules as I believe the correct rules will eliminate the static perception I had of the game we played tonight.

For the record, our (incorrectly played) scores were:

Jeff: 9
Dave: 9
Sterling: 13
Rich: 17
Carrie: 18
Lawrence: 24

But all in all, a very nice session tonight. A large group of people playing 3 games. We almost split into 2 groups, but could find games that the entire group could play. I did enjoy the focus on "A" games for the week leading up to the session and hope that next week's attempt to play a "B" game is just as successful.

Thread: Re:Can someone post the rules?

steveoliverc — 2005-01-07T15:10:30+00:00

GeoMan (#68583),
and don't forget the play money -- we love the play money!

Thread: Q, X, and Y

steveoliverc — 2005-01-07T15:09:20+00:00

As Peter noted in his review, the deck of Typo cards does not include the Q, X, or Y.

The missing Q makes sense because it's such a show-stopper, although I've seen another word card game (Quiddler) where the Q is listed as QU on the card. One problem I have getting more people into Scrabble is that they act as if it's the Chess of word games and of course seeing the championships on ESPN probably helps that reputation. So I like that Q is missing and keeps the game fast and easy, and more accessible. I've already played Typo more in the past few months with a larger number of people that I've played with Scrabble in years.

As for the Z -- we haven't had problems too much, but when it gets played, it is kind of exciting -- it definitely gets everyone to stop and make a comment like, Ahh, now what are we going to do? I think the longest string of letters I've seen on the table with Z is ZOOL which was played as zoology. And I think I've seen it played into an existing word such as RAZ for raze, but usually it's played as the start of a new row, in my experience. I like the Z and think it livens up the game without making it a show-stopper like a Q would do.

As for the Y -- I hadn't paid much attention to it, I knew it wasn't in the deck but I can't think of when I've been playing and wished I had a Y to build into a word. It's a pretty tough letter to add onto if it gets played at the end of a word because Y shifts to I in English, such as WINDY to WINDIER. I wonder if that had something to do with it, or if perhaps it was left out because of how it's used in Dutch, French, and German (the other languages the game is sold in with the same set of letters but with language translations for the rules), but I know absolutely nothing about those languages and would appreciate anyone else's insights.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Thread: Re:User Review

steveoliverc — 2005-01-07T05:51:06+00:00

Jeff, I've got a couple of variants but BGG isn't accepting file uploads right now, so I'll paste one in here and message you when I am able to upload the file with the rest of them. Let me know what you think!

Typo Solitaire Variant #1 – The Lowest Score
Shuffle the deck.
Deal four cards face-up onto the table, in rows, just like in the multi-player game.
Deal yourself twelve cards into a face-down pile.
Set the rest of the deck aside as a draw pile.
Pick the first card from your hand pile, and play it onto one of the four rows, following the word-placement rules per the multi-player game (play the card at the beginning or end of any row, no proper nouns, no acronyms, etc.) and of course the row must spell out the beginning of a real word.
If you can’t form a word, pick up the longest row on the table (if more than one row is the longest, then it’s your choice which to pick) and place it off to the side in a discard pile. Pick the top card from the draw pile (NOT the card from your hand) and place it onto the table to start the new row. Continue playing with the card in your hard.
The game ends when the cards in your hand are done and you’ve played the last card from your hand onto the table (there will likely be cards left in the draw pile, but these are not counted).
Count the number of cards in the discard pile for your score (the lower the better). Try to get a lower number the next time you play.

Thread: Re:User Review

jm100 — 2005-01-04T22:12:12+00:00

steveoliverc (#74089),

Great review. I'm looking forward to trying this.

I'd be interested to hear your solitaire variant suggestions.

Thread: User Review

steveoliverc — 2005-01-01T16:22:17+00:00

Typo is a card game for 2 to 6 players, plays in less than half an hour, rated for ages 8 and above.

FULL DISCLOSURE
I’ve played Typo a lot since purchasing it a couple of months ago for less than $9 from Boulder Games, and I really like. I don’t always win (check out my session report) but even when I lose I like playing this game. It’s fun, it’s competitive, it can even be played cooperatively and solitaire. And you might boost your vocabulary at the same time. Overall, this game feels like “Scrabble light” with a bidding aspect. So the full disclosure is that this is one of the few games that I rate a 10 and you won’t be hearing anything negative about it since I haven’t found anything bad with the game

COMPONENTS
What you get is a deck of 64 over-sized cards. At first I was afraid they were a little flimsy but they’ve held up well over a lot of plays so my fears were unfounded. Everyone I’ve played with appreciates the large size (approximately 4” x 2.25”) because when you lay these cards out on the table, everyone can read them very easily. I’ve played this where I’m the person who’s reading the game “upside-down” but without any problems. And reading the letters sideways is a snap. (Note: my deck arrived missing a letter T but an email to Corne the game designer & publisher quickly returned a card to me in the mail – thanks, Corne!!!)

The card graphics are very clever. The letters look like they were typed by a typewriter. The letters are printed very large and make for easy reading by everyone sitting around the table. Each letter has a small number under it which indicates the distribution of that letter in the deck; for example, there are three letter Ts.

The rulebook is exceptional. I shouldn’t get excited about a set of rules (please refer to the full disclosure above) but many card games have a flimsy piece of paper printed in black and white with a type size of 3 or 4, which even in a good lighting conditions is much more difficult to read than it needs to be. But this little gem of a rulebook is printed in color on glossy paper, it folds neatly into the deck case, and the type size is decently sized. There is an excellent graphic to explain the gameplay. Just an excellent rule book by any measure, and for a card game this is over the top. There are four rule books in English, French, German, and I believe Dutch although I’ve filed away the other versions so I can’t verify. Interesting note about language – the game is played with the same cards regardless of language, so languages with accents and diacritical marks just have to imagine them, I supposed. I’m not sure how the gameplay would be affected by the letter distribution, but it works well in English.

Here’s something else you don’t get with every card game although you should: a case! Seems so obvious that the cards should at least come in a box, but often the boxes are over-sized which makes traveling more difficult than it should be, or the case is flimsy cardboard and doesn’t hold up well, or you have trouble getting the flap into the case because it gets stuck on the cards inside. But Typo is sold in a plastic case with a lid that perfect fits the cards and the rules. I realize I’m getting pretty excited about this, but having a case means not using a rubber band, so the cards have stayed in great shape. Most importantly, I bring this game everywhere with me since it’s so small and the cards are protected, so I’ve been able to play the game in many places and with many more people than would have been possible if this only got brought out at a games session. Since the game can play quickly in less than thirty minutes, I’ve had plenty of chances in the coffee shop to bring this out.

A dictionary is needed. This is used for two purposes: to break ties, and to resolve challenges. (More on these later.) A good dictionary would be the Scrabble player’s dictionary. I have Scrabble on my phone so we use my phone as the dictionary. Also, just the card case can work – in a friendly game, there’s no need to challenge words but you still need a way to resolve the ties.

In a game with more than three players, bring along a pencil and paper to keep score between rounds.

RULES
Finally! Let’s get to playing the game. Simple enough: dealer shuffles and deals out twelve cards face down to each player, then lays out four cards face up on the table in four rows. There is an image posted here at BGG which shows a round of play so you can get an idea of what the table looks like (this graphic is from the rulebook).

Place the dictionary next to one of the players, such as left of the dealer.

The goal of the game is to minimize your negative score, because you lose points if you can’t make a word. You make words by playing a card from your hand and laying it either to the left or the right of a card in any of the four rows on the table. For example, lay a G to the left of A. Then you call out a word that starts with those letters. In this case, GAME. Or you can play it to the right, such as A G, and call out AGRICULTURE. (New players think you need to be able to spell out the entire word with cards in your hand, but you don’t – just be able to call out a word that starts with the letters on the row that you played your card on.)

Valid words are the same as you play in Scrabble: no proper nouns, no foreign words, no acronyms, etc.

But there’s a twist, and this is what makes this game so much fun: bidding. The players each slap their card down at the same time, and whoever plays the letter closest to the beginning of the alphabet gets to go first and play their card. Then the player with the next letter alphabetically, etc. You might be planning to play a letter to make a word, but with the bidding, by the time it’s your turn to play your card, the possibility for that word is no longer there.

Ties: if two or more players lay down the same letter, then the person with the dictionary (or closest to the diction going clockwise) gets to go first. This happens several times a round, which seems surprisingly high until you realize that players are bidding for first or last order and trying to form a lot of the same words.

If you can’t form a word with your letter with it’s your turn to play it, then you take the cards from the row of the four words that is the longest. If more than one row has the same number of cards and these rows are all the longest rows, then the player gets to pick which row to remove. Place the cards in a pile in front of you, and put the card that you are playing into the empty row where it will start off a new word. The cards in front of you count negatively toward your score (minus one point for each card you’ve taken). You also place the dictionary in front of you so that you will get the benefit in the event of a tie in a future round.

Challenging: if a player calls out a word, another player can challenge it. Look it up in the dictionary. If it is a valid word, the player receives 2 positive points which you need to write on the score sheet. If it is indeed a phony word, then the player takes the longest row of cards, as above when they cannot form a word.

Play continues like this until all twelve cards are gone from each hand. At this point, score the points (see below), re-shuffle the cards that were played, but leave the cards in the center of the table in the four rows where they are. Deal 12 cards again, and continue playing, but this time, the bidding is done in reverse: the letter closest to the end of the alphabet will go first. This adds a fun twist as now everyone is playing the game exactly opposite of how they played it the first time around.

SCORING
This is a game where you are trying to minimize a negative score. At the end of round 1, when everyone has played their 12 cards, each player adds up the cards they have taken. Write these down. In a two- or three-player game, there are enough cards in the deck where you can just keep them stacked up, but with four or more players you need the cards to re-shuffle for round 2. At the end of round two, add your cards again, add that to round 1’s score, and you have your winner.

STRATEGY
Should you hold onto certain letters, hoping to win the bidding later in the round?

If you see a word you can form, it is all for naught if another player outbids you and gets there first, so you have to balance the letter you want to play with its bidding position.

Others have mentioned that this game probably needs players of about the same word ability, which has a lot of merit, but I think with a congenial group there is no reason that a variety of players can’t enjoy this. I’ve played this very competitively with my weekly game group, but also less competitively with the family and with children, and in these cases it pays to help them out with a few suggestions if they seem like they need it.

VARIATIONS
There is a variant on the Cwali website – always nice to have some of those. And you can easily play this solitaire (I might post a few ways that I play it solitaire if I get the time). I’ve also played this with the students forming teams of three and they enjoy that a lot.

OVERALL
It’s amazing to me that the designer of Typo is the same person who designed StreetSoccer and ZooSim– at first glance, one is a sports game with dice, one is a word game with cards, the other a tile game. But in the end, they are all easy to learn, very re-playable, quick playing, and FUN, so I supposed these games have a lot in common after all. It’s a shame this nifty little game isn’t rated higher in BGG than it is – I don’t think you need to be a fan of word games to enjoy this (I’ve played with people who say they don’t like Scrabble and they’ve had fun), although if someone said they really didn’t like word games then I wouldn’t ask them to join me in a game. I think this game will be a good intro or “trainer” game for the students in my upcoming after school game club where we are hoping to form a competitive Scrabble team. And it’s just a fun, quick-playing, and easy-to-carry game for people of any age who enjoy word games.

Thread: Session Report

steveoliverc — 2004-12-31T16:01:19+00:00

Typo Session report

Battle of the Ages!

One quality I really enjoy about this game is that it’s just so accessible. I’ve played this with my weekly game buddies, the family, solitaire, and today with a family friend in his seventies, myself in my forties, and my daughter still in the single digits – and we had a great time.

ROUND 1
This is J’s first time playing, although he’s very good at Scrabble which is why I introduced this game to him. My daughter has played several times and understands the bidding aspect, and also reads a lot so her vocabulary is pretty good. So I deal out the cards, give the dictionary to my daughter, and we’re off. I didn’t keep a play by play of the words but some of the notable ones.

E E and the Kid had K to play EEK while I had slapped down L hoping to play EEL but she beat me by one letter (bidding is alphabetically in the first round). Ouch! Of course I couldn’t play the L anywhere and ended up eating 4 points. Then peals of laughter from the table as I’m reminded that LEEK is word.

This game rewards the astute listener. Something about this game makes people want to rattle off out every clever word they can think of regardless if it’s their turn or not (for their own sake, hopefully they remember to call out the words **after** the round is over  ) so it pays to listen. We had N I G H T on one row, and J decided to share out loud that would make nighttime, nightmare, knight, knighted, etc. Needless to say, on the next round, that came in pretty handy as a brain cramp had prevented me from visualizing K in front of NIGHT.

The rounded with myself and the Kid having a tie with the letter O, but J had the dictionary and the Kid was clockwise next, so she got to go before me. She played it in front of the solitary I to call out OINK. I ate some more points on that one. It’s surprising how many ties come up in this game. You’d think with 26 letters in the alphabet that wouldn’t be the case, but we had 3 or so ties per round.

End of round scoring: the Kid with 3, me with 13, and J with 14. So we’re both getting wiped off the table by the Kid, but I’m thinking at this point, at least I’m not alone in the loser’s pit…

ROUND 2 – now the bidding is in reverse alphabetical order.

J played a D in front of A M A to call out damask.

The Kid played A at the end of H E R to call out herald.

The game ended with the Kid playing E in front of O N for eon. A nice ending and she played well the entire game.

I had the feeling all along that I wasn’t doing all that poorly, just taking a word here and there, but then after counting our cards, the Kid announces she has 3, J has 14, and suddenly I realize those are the same scores they ended Round 1 with, and it sure is taking me a lot longer to count my cards than it took them… I ended up with 32.

We all enjoyed the game. I always like playing this, even when I lose, and lose badly like I did in this game, but that’s the mark of a great game – it’s fun even to lose. The game is competitive but cooperative at the same time, and there’s no such thing as down time – everyone has their card on the table so while your opponent is thinking of a word you can be doing the same thing.

Playing time was about 45 minutes which is longer than this usually takes (usually more like 20 to 30 minutes) but the Kid was really giving her cards some thought before she bid with them, and her score reflects that!

Thread: Team Typo for Kids

steveoliverc — 2004-12-07T03:35:27+00:00

There was an odd number of students at today's chess club at my daughter's school (ages 8 to 11) so I invited the "odd man out" to play a hand of Typo (I carry the deck around just for times like this, or also to enjoy a game of solitaire Typo). About 7 or 8 students got a chance to try the game, usually passing their hand over when a chess table became available and letting the next odd one out finish their hand. It was a pleasure to see how much the kids enjoyed the game! They really like the bidding aspect and we'd make a big production out of slapping our letters down on the table. I was very impressed with some of the words they were coming up with. I was generous with the hints if they wanted them, but most of the time they got the words on their own. Turned out to be a fun change of pace from their chess tournament. The rules were easily explained in less than a minute, and the over-sized cards were perfect for the kids's hands.

Towards the end of the chess class, as the games were breaking up, there were about 5 or 6 students huddled around watching so they joined sides and we finished the game playing 2 teams. This went over really well! They'd huddle and throw words back and forth on each side, then discuss which would be the best letter to bid with.

I'm glad I had this impromptu chance to try out Typo with children, as I'm going to be running an after school game club next month and I was wondering if they'd like this game. Looks like a winner with the kids! That's good news for me, too, since it's one of my new favorites.

Thread: Re:Can someone post the rules?

GeoMan — 2004-12-02T01:08:41+00:00

With some modifications and a die you can also play BuyWord with Typo.

Thread: Re:Can someone post the rules?

steveoliverc — 2004-12-02T00:41:13+00:00

jayzen (#68570),
The rules to Typo are at the Cwali web site:

http://www.cwali.com/typo/typo.htm

It's a great game, we've been having fun with it at the weekly game night and also at home with the family. The bidding aspect makes it unique among the word games that I play (BuyWord, Scrabble, Upwords, Boggle, Quiddler).

Thread: Can someone post the rules?

jayzen — 2004-12-01T23:25:10+00:00

Can someone post the rules to Typo? I'm considering getting it but would like to read the rules first.

I already have several word games, and aren't sure another one would be sufficiently novel.

Thanks!

Thread: Re:User Review

steveoliverc — 2004-11-15T17:18:21+00:00

Peter, great review! I just got the game last week and we played it this weekend. I really like how you try to bid for letter placement based on your letter, and how that reverses in the second half. Also like the over-sized printing of the letters on the cards -- makes it very easy to read the letters if your across the table and reading them upside down when playing with a group.

About the price -- I got my copy for $8.80 at Boulder Games which I thought was a fair deal, especially considering the large card size and the plastic carrying case. Of course, I wouldn't mind paying $5 and getting it at Target to save on the shipping, but it was part of a larger order and I'm glad I got it.

Thread: Great service from Cwali!!! Re:Number of cards in a Typo deck?

steveoliverc — 2004-11-15T16:54:08+00:00

steveoliverc (#65146),
Cwali is putting a T card into the mail for me -- thanks!!

Thread: User Review

SkookumPete — 2004-11-15T00:56:00+00:00

Typo consists of a deck of 64 cards, each containing a letter of the alphabet, a digit showing how many of that letter are in the deck, and an alphabetic chart in case anyone doesn't know the order of the letters. Q, X, and Y are not represented. Judging from the fact that the game comes with rules in English, Dutch, French, and German, the letter selection appears to be one-size-fits-all. Any diacritical marks in the players' preferred language are not used.

The cards are of average quality, but I like that they come in a soft plastic container instead of a cheap cardboard box. The English rules are clear if a bit inelegant in places.

The number of players is listed as 2-6. I've played with up to 4, and with this number it moves quickly enough if an element of cooperative pressure is allowed, i.e. other players agreeing that there is no possible play with that letter, so please pick up a row and let's move on.

A game consists of two rounds, in each of which the players receive 12 cards. At the beginning of the game, 4 cards are placed on the table to start rows. Players then secretly select a card from their hands, all cards are revealed, and play goes in alphabetical order (reverse order in the second round), with each player adding his or her letter to the beginning or end of one of the rows to make either a whole word or the beginning of a word. If unable to do so, the player must pick up the longest row, scoring the number of cards in the row, and start a new row with the letter played. Lowest score wins.

Here's an example. Suppose the rows are NIB, ES, FILL, and JESTE. My opponent plays R, and I play D. It's the second round, so my opponent goes first and plays JESTER. My intention had been to play JESTED, but I can still play DES, calling out DESTROY as a word that starts with the letters in that row. If I hadn't found a play, though, I would have had to pick up JESTER, put my D on that row, and score 6 points.

A few tactical principles quickly emerge. One is getting rid of your ugly letters as quickly as possible, leaving general-purpose letters like S, T, and E in your hand for the late going. Play a letter that can go on two or more rows, in case your opponent beats you to the punch by messing up one of them. Use the order of play to your advantage; if you have a choice of making JESTER or JESTED, play the letter that's going to give you first move, and you may put your opponent behind the eight-ball. By the same token, there are times when you don't want to play first, because the board is jammed with unplayable combinations, and you want to force your opponent to start a new row before you have to play.

A good vocabulary is a big asset. I recommend playing with the Scrabble dictionary to resolve challenges, as there will always be the temptation to push the limits in order to make a play.

Overall I can recommend Typo for those who like word games. Besides being quick and portable, it offers good interaction and a fair amount of depth in hand management. I often slip this in my pocket before heading off to games night, and I can almost always find opponents.

Thread: Re:Number of cards in a Typo deck?

steveoliverc — 2004-11-13T04:59:40+00:00

I found it in the rules book, there should be 64 cards, looks like my set is missing a letter T...

Thread: Number of cards in a Typo deck?

steveoliverc — 2004-11-13T00:47:46+00:00

I just received my Typo card game...and wondering if I'm missing a card.

There are 63 cards in my deck. Each letter includes a number, which represents how many of that letter are in the deck. So the T card has a 3 so all players know there are 3 T’s in the deck. Except that my deck has only 2 of the T cards, and 63 cards in the deck seems like there should be 64...

Does anyone know how many cards are in a Typo deck? Did I get the right number of T cards? Thanks to anyone who can let me know.