Remarks on the Game of "Boggle"
Eugene McDonnell (Eemcd(AT)aol.com)  Sun Jul  1 20:32:46 2001

Boggle is sold in the USA by:

Parker Brothers
PO Box 1012
Beverly, MA 01915

The game comes in two forms; the original game, the one I cut my teeth on, 
and which is the subject of A06000 etc., is called BoggleTM, and is played on 
a 4-by-4 tray. The other game, which I now favour, and which appeared several 
years after Boggle was introduced, is called Big BoggleTM, and is played on a 
5-by-5 tray. The blocks are miniature, about five-eighths of an inch on a 
side and made of plastic, as is the tray. There is also a clear plastic dome 
which fits snugly over the tray, permitting the whole to be turned upside 
down, shaken, and turned upright, so that with a little jiggling each block 
nestles upright in one of the cells. The game comes with a three-minute 
egg-timer and a little sheet of instructions. The letters on each of the 
sixteen Boggle cubes and the 25 Big Boggle cubes are given by the columns of 
the tables below. They are shown as lower-case here, but in the game they  
appear as capitals. The letter shown as 'q' is actually the digraph 'qu', and 
if used in a word counts as two letters:

aaaaacdddeeeeehh    aaaaaaaabccccddddeeefgino
abcfoieeieehilil    fdeaeaeajceeehhdhnmiiopoo
ebhfomilsgirormn    ieeageefkeiiillhhsoiprroo
ejoktolrthntstnn    rnefmegiqnlipnnnlstirrrtt
goppttrvtnsvstqr    snernemrxsplsoooosttsvrut
nosswuxyywuwtyuz    ynmsneuszttttrrtruttywywu

Here are the rules of the game, taken from the instruction sheet supplied 
with the 5x5 game. The instruction sheet notes that the rules are copyright 
1979, 1983 by Parker Brothers.

Object: To list, within 3 minutes, as many words of the highest point value 
as you can find among the random assortment of letters in the cube grid.

Preparation: Each player should have a pencil and a piece of paper. Drop the 
letter cubes into the dome and place the grid, open side down, over the dome. 
Turn the domed grid right-side up, vigorously shake the cubes around, and 
maneuver the grid until each cube falls into place. Then, as one player 
removes the dome, another player starts the timer.

Playing: When the timer starts, each player searches the assortment of 
letters for words of four letters or more. When you find a word, write it 
down.

Words are formed from adjoining letters. Letters must join in the proper 
sequence to spell a word. They may join horizontally, vertically or 
diagonally to the left, right, or up-and-down. No letter cube, however, may 
be used more than once within a single word.

Type of words allowed: The only words that are allowed are those that can be 
found in a standard English dictionary. You may look for any type of 
word--noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc. Plural nouns are acceptable as are 
all verb tenses. Words within words are also allowed, e.g., master: mast, 
aster. 

Type of words not allowed: Proper nouns, abbreviations, contractions, 
hyphenated words, and foreign words that are not in an English dictionary.

Scoring and winning: When the timer runs out, everyone must stop writing. 
Each player in turn then reads aloud his or her list of words. Any word that 
appears on more than one player's list must be crossed off all lists, 
including that of the reader. The same word found by a player in different 
areas of the grid may not be counted for multiple credit.

After all players have read their lists, each player scores his or her 
remaining words, differing point values accorded to the words according to 
their lengths, as follows:
no. of letters  4   5   6   7   8+
points        1 2   3   5   11
The winner is a) the player whose words have earned the most points, or b) 
the first to reach 50 points, 100 points or whatever score is considered by 
all to be a reasonable target.

This is probably more than you want to know, but I happened to have the above 
in a file on my computer -- from an article I have just written for a column 
I write fairly regularly for Vector, the quarterly journal of the British APL 
Association. In the course of writing the article I wanted to use the numbers 
I sent you, and so, with a little help from my friends, wrote some simple 
programs to generate the desired lists.

Perhaps some day I'll submit to you the corresponding lists for the 5x5 game. 
As of now, I don't have a big enough computer to get beyond the lists to find 
9-letter words. It's a wonderful game, especially fun for word-lovers.

Eugene McDonnell