LogFAQs > #932364390

121. Quiddler (1998)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Word game, spelling
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 1
Game length: 30 minutes
Experience: 4-8 plays (2015), 5+ players
Previous ranks: 60/100 (2016), NR (2018)

Summary - Over the course of eight rounds, each player are dealt a larger and larger hand of letters. On their turn, everyone draws from a deck/discard pile and then discards a card. The goal is to use all of the words in hand in two-or-more-letter words once someone else has set theirs out. Points are awarded for the difficulty level of the letters used and subtracted if they are unused by the end.

Experience - It's been a long time since I played Quiddler, which mainly happened with the friend whose collection was the first source of games for me. Again, I'm a big fan of word games, and the ruleset was approachable enough for someone who didn't necessarily have the appetite for heavier games at the time.

Design - Quiddler appeals to the part of me that wants to make cool words. It does allow you to craft your own hand by drawing cards. Looking back, I mainly feel frustrated by the lack of control in the cards you get, along with the scoring mechanism. I suppose it's a risk/reward tradeoff, but I find it rather punishing and unfun and archaic in a way. I enjoy the spelling part of the game, but do not enjoy the massive disincentives to spell cool words as opposed to "Scrabble" words - because of the way scoring works, it's better to play "ZA" and waste an R, H, and D than to play "HARD," because the Z is worth so many more points. On top of that, with a high number of players, it's highly likely someone will be dealt an insta-play hand, which means you can have very limited opportunities to tailor your own hand. So when I think of this game, I tend to remember being screwed either by low-point-value cards or by having to play shitty words to avoid negative points - but at the same time, I enjoy the mechanics of spelling words. It's a complicated spot to be in!

Future - The friend that owns Quiddler moved away long ago, and while I still play with her once or twice a year, Quiddler largely filled a niche of "we have already gone through the dozen better games of this weight for this high player-count." So I see it as unlikely the game rises, even though I'd theoretically like to play it again, if only to refresh my memory. (Quiddler did not make it onto the 2018 list because it wasn't fresh enough in my mind... evidently I'm less choosy this year.)
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness