i’ve been on a roll lately with lexulous, playing 2-minute games with 0-second increments. the rounds are high speed and filled with intense pressure thus giving me my daily adrenalin rush. i recently beat my previous record for most points with one word (230 for THERAPIES) when my opponent played HOOD and left open the triple word spot. i had LUCKIEST in my rack, so with the K on the double letter, and the 8 tiles spanning two triple-word-scores, i got a grand total of 267 points.
the sheer luck of having those tiles in my rack was not lost on me.
i’m playing lexulous blitz with the S.O. and we see some player by the name kenjim finish with 3000+ points and we’re like “WTF???” so we watch kenjim play the next round. (lexulous has a function where you can observe someone playing. go to the PLAYERS list, highlight a name, right-click and choose OBSERVE.) this is how it went down:
310 points - no bigs, right?
but just wait and see what happens…
NONQUANTIFIABLE for 1076 points!
but wait. kenjim isn’t finished yet. here comes trouble…
OXYPHENBUTAZONE for 1481 points!!
and with 13 seconds left on the clock, kenjim still manages to score an extra 33 points.
kenjim finishes with 3004 points -- nobody else is even in the same zipcode
set yerself up for the triple-word scores, then blitz!
i have a new addiction. i’ve just discovered an option on the online scrabble game lexulous called lexulous blitz. if you don’t have a lot of time to commit to a regular back-and-forth game with another opponent, and you want to challenge yourself to maximize points under time pressure, lexulous blitz is for you.
here’s the lowdown on how to play from the lexulous site:
The Blitz version takes Lexulous to an all new level! Blitz is exactly the same as regular Lexulous, except that you have the entire board to yourself. You compete with up to 150 people in rounds lasting 4 minutes each.
All players start the round with the same 7 tiles, and then it is up to them to make full use of the 4 minutes to get the maximum number of points. Whoever scores most before the time / tiles run out, wins the round. Results for all the players in the round are shown instantly and the next round begins after a 1 minute break.
If you play Blitz it is highly recommended that you use the keyboard to place the tiles rather than drag them one by one using the mouse. Simple (sic) click on the board and a black arrow will appear. Then type the tiles you have in your rack to place them on the board. Clicking twice will make the arrow point vertically.
this is why lexulous rocks; you can type in your letters quickly instead of dragging them onto the board individually which is painfully slow and a great way to develop carpal’s (like in yahoo games’ literati–or “lamerati” as i like to call it.) here’s one player on lexulous blitz cashing in big time on triple-word scores:
154 points for DETOXES at 36 seconds into the video
amazing! i just started playing and have finished anywhere from 250 – 650 points. most of the winners top the heap with about 800+ points. i got a long wayz to go
but if you really wanna blow your opponents out of the water, watch r3teng (on the old scrabulous site) get 1,467 points with one word by building the infamous OXYPHENBUTAZONE across THREE triple-word- score spots!! i thought achieving this was an urban myth akin to sighting sasquatch, but here’s video proof that it can really happen:
look for armageddon to comeat 4 minutes and 12 seconds
holy blitzkrieg! did you see that?? i think it’s more fun to come up with your own words instead of swapping tiles until you get the right ones for OXYPHENBUTAZONE. still, that was just beautiful to watch.
now you know where you can find me; in the lexulous blitz room in “rack attack” mode, under user name suddenly_susan trying to keep up with LittleDebbie, RandyH, and harmony888. oh, lexulous blitz, you are so fun and exciting! i’m looking forward to spending lots o’ time with you. maybe, if things go well, i’ll let you hold my rack.
(and just in case you were wondering, oxyphenbutazone is a metabolite of phenylbutazone.)
i couldn’t access scrabulous today. first it said, “The site is taking a coffee break. Sorry for the inconvenience.” then later, the site redirected to godaddy.com and had pictures of that american race driver chick. i thought, “that’s weird. the site must have a temporary glitch.” now i found out that the stoopid hasbro company made the creators change the name. according to the telegraph (kolkata):
Delhi High Court has ruled that Calcutta-based Rajat, 27, and Jayant, 22, will retain the right to post their word game online, but will not be allowed to use Scrabulous, Scrabble or any other “similar sounding” name.
…
The creators of Scrabulous, the Agarwalla brothers of RJ Software on VIP Road, have in effect won the copyright but lost the trademark battle. “The high court held that no one had any copyright on the board game as it was an expression of an idea,” said advocate Sushant M. Singh.
hence www.scrabulous.com was shut down and the bros had to come up with a new site. some of the contenders on the short list were:
lexulous is only in the solitaire version for now but a message from rajat and jayant says that the live and email versions will be ready before this sunday. i’m glad they got to keep the rights to the game format. that’s one small step for the argawalla brothers, and one giant leap for the little guys who don’t back down from retarded corporate bullies. yay!
but i wonder…does that mean i lose my scrabulous ranking?? (i was at 2044!)
UPDATE: lexulous.com is now up and running. you can log in with your original login email AND it keeps your former scrabulous rating. however, some of the room names have changed.
i'm suddenly susan. i grew up in new york city. my last home was in korea where i spent three years. i left in 2007 to travel the world, freelance writing to pay the bills. europe, jamaica, fiji, NZ, australia...and i'm still on the road, currently in cape town, south africa. follow me as i continue my journey across the globe.
