| What game combines the intellectual and educational challenge of word play with
the exhilarating thrill of adventure on the high seas?
Some of you may remeber this product placement in Simpsons Episode The Old Man and the Key (DABF09):
Bart : B6
Homer : You sunk my scrabbleship!
Lisa : This game makes no sense
Homer : Tell that to the good men who just lost their lives... semper fi!"
It was actually invented in 1996 by a Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan , David J. Conner, who wrote a MiSTed fanfic called MiSTED: Defiant Errand:
TOM: Mike, did you know that many of your classic games use grids of rows
and columns? But until now, nobody ever did anything about it! My game
combines the intellectual and educational challenge of word play with the
exhilarating thrill of adventure on the high seas! It's a little something
I like to call... Scrabbleship! Here, Crow and I will show you how it
works.
TOM: OK, my word is "Quonset," as in "Quonset hut," and that gives me,
counting the Double Letter Score for the Q.... 56 points!
CROW: hit. Well, I'll put the letter I next to your N in "Quonset,"
spelling the word, um, "in," for, um, 2 points, and hitting D5.
TOM: Miss! Now, building off the T in "Quonset," I'll put down the word
"zygote," for 76 points including the Triple Word Score, and hitting F1, F2,
F3, F4, and F5.
CROW: You sunk my battleship!!!!
The game is played with a standard 15x15 Scrabble board and some grid paper where a corresponding 15x15 battle field is drawn. Each player will arrange (in secret) his standard-issue battleships on his grid:
- Four one unit ships; 4 x #
- Three two-unit-long ships; 3 x ##
- Two three-unit-long ships; 2 x ###
- One four-unit-long ship; 1 x ####
When tiles are placed on the scrabble board, the corresponding battleship grid places are hit. Double and triple word/letter spaces also hit every adjacent space on the battleship grid. The scrabble score is added to the battleship score for each battleship spot hit. Triple letter/word double the hit score on the battleships.
Game Tips
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