Scrabble with Numbers

When I was a kid my grandmother had an old game called Numble that I would take out once in a while and try to play. Honestly, it wasn't a very good game - the idea was pretty much Scrabble but with numbers, and the rules were a little too boring for me - especially when I was 6 or so. I think my brother and I usually opted for Upwords instead - at least with that game you could stack the letter tiles and I guess pretend they were Legos or something.

Numble from 1968 [video on Instagram]

Decades later I picked up the game from my grandmother. Although I didn't care for it as a child, it was one that nostalgically grew on me as I got older. Don't get me wrong, it's still a boring game (there's a reason it's no longer in print) but I guess I can blame Scrabble for my picking it up. In college I began to understand and appreciate the mechanics more for Scrabble (and I also got much more competitive and cutthroat with the game).

Numble originally came out in 1965 - 17 years after Scrabble, and was styled with a lot of similarities to the game. It had a board with double letter (number) and word (sequence) scores, and had structural rules behind it (sequences had to be in ascending or descending order and be divisible by 3). The rules actually translated to scrabble well, but it just wasn't as fun.

The problem I felt was that numbers were boring compared to letters. 26 letters with variable frequency led to challenging word decisions that didn't exist with Numble's 10 number options (and blanks). Numbers varied in frequency, but it really wasn't the same - it was harder to get excited about getting a 9 versus getting a Z or X in scrabble. Another thing was that your points were relative to the points on the tile, so a 9 was 9 points, a 5 was 5 points, etc. This meant that 9s were almost always playable at the end of most sequences (add a 9 digit to any sequence and it's still divisible by 3), and could be the beginning of a new perpendicular sequence. 9s were broken tiles in the games of Numble that I played.

So let's fast forward to a game that popped up on Kickstarter over the last few days called Yushino.

I have pretty mixed opinions on the game they're offering (they have a web app you can try if you want). On the one hand, I do find it interesting that the game idea is has come around again. On the other hand, I don't know if its game mechanics have that much more to offer than Numble had. Yushino's rules are almost as simple as Numble's rules were: Sequences of 2 have to differ by 1 (Nk = 1 ± Nk+1), and Sequences of 3 or more have to follow the rule of each digit being the last digit of the sum of the previous two (or Nk+2 = (Nk + Nk+1) mod 10). The benefit I noticed was that it keeps the digits from getting clumped in order like Numble did. However, the disadvantage remains that the digits represent the points as well. Playing the game, it feels more and more that your victory in the game is partly based on experience, but still has a bit of a luck factor on pulling 9s. In one online game I tried I managed to get a hand cluttered with 0-3 point tiles, and it was a miserable game for me.

I love a game where it's possible to play tiles
and get zero points out of the turn.

I do think Yushino's a good progression on the Number Scrabble idea - but I think my biggest problem is that the Number Scrabble concept just isn't as challenging or fun to me. If I want a Scrabble-like game, I'll just play Scrabble. If I want a more number-oriented game, I'll play a game more oriented toward bidding or heavy strategy like Power Grid, or play a shorter game with simple math like Zombie Dice. Or I'll just cut up some index cards, write numbers on them and use a Scrabble board if I'm really jonesing for a Numble variant. At least then the investment is minimal.

There's a bit of time before the Kickstarter ends if you want to support it by 31 July 2013. It's also nice that it is available in other mobile device forms, so you can see if it's something you think would be worthwhile (or you could just play it that way and not have to worry about doing math at all). I won't be backing it though; I have never had a board game collect as much dust as Numble over the years, and don't want to see about getting another one.