OK, forget what I just said. Scrabulous is back! Well sort of – Scrabulous v2.0 is rechristened Wordscraper, and boasts just enough design changes to throw a wrench in Hasbro’s case for infringement. Behold:
The differentiation has both superficial (circular tiles, random/userdefined placement of the bonus squares) and game mechanical (tile point values, tile letter distribution) elements. Whether that’s enough to keep it alive from Hasbro’s lawyers is an open question. I love the fact that you can define your own board, however. My only gripe is that they didn’t save any games from Scrabulous, but I suppose that was necessary since doing so would require the “Scrabble classic” board, whose layout is probably part of Hasbro’s copyright. I’d like to have at least had the chance to restart games in progress, though.
I guess the appeal of Scrabulous was indeed the wordplay and not any actual loyalty to Scrabble per se. It’s like you’ve driven a Ford Mustang all your life and then one day you try a Corvette – if you like Mustangs, then you won’t like the Corvette. If you like driving sports cars, though, then it doesn’t matter how you get your fix[1. I am sure that people who actually know something about cars, or mustangs or corvettes, are gasping in horror at the sacrilege of my analogy].
So, lets scrape!