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Wordsmith box art
2019 Ranked #15,152

Wordsmith

This real-time word-building game has players assemble and score unique words from shaped letter pieces. Longer words pay more, but limiting discarded pieces and finishing every word adds competing priorities.

Real-time Word Game Paper-and-Pencil Dice Rolling

Players

1-4

Play time

20-30 min

Age

10+

Complexity

1/5

Rating

6.24

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.3/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 3.9/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.8/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

WORDSMITH is all about discovering words, but instead of whole letters, you just have letter pieces in four different shapes. This brain tickling game for 1 to 4 players is a fast-paced, real-time word building frenzy!

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

WORDSMITH is all about discovering words, but instead of whole letters, you just have letter pieces in four different shapes. This brain tickling game for 1 to 4 players is a fast-paced, real-time word building frenzy! All players create words simultaneously from their letter pieces. Each word can only be made and scored once, so a thrilling challenge of word discovery begins. Which words will you discover in your letter pieces? Longer words earn you more points, but you also want to make all six words before the round is over. And of course there is a twist: Although you can discard letter pieces to make a word, you get bonus points when you can limit the number of pieces you have to discard. The idea for this Letter Piece Game comes from Eon game designers Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge, Greg Olotka, and Peter Olotka, whose credits include Cosmic Encounter, Dune, Hoax and more. The game provides a single player mode as well as special rules for advanced players. WORDSMITH includes semitransparent plastic letter pieces that are playful and easy to manipulate. A special plastic insert turns the game box into a game component. You get your letter pieces from the insert as part of game play and everyone also has their own corner of the insert to roll their dice in.

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
No editions imported yet.

Player resources

Rulebooks, player aids, FAQs, and solo resources.

No files imported yet.

Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
1–4
Best with
2–4
Play time
20–30 min
Age
10+
Complexity
1.0/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

3
Bill Eberle Peter Olotka Greg Olotka

Artists

1
Annika Brüning

Publishers

1
HeidelBÄR Games

Linked items

No published linked games yet.