More substance than Mexican Train; More friendly to table talk than Scrabble.
Appletters is among the second wave of "fruit bowl" word games after Bananagrams. Like its predecessor it comes in a visually appealing cloth package but with red-colored letter tiles of a slightly larger and thicker variety.
GAME PLAY
An Appletters round plays about as fast as a Bananagrams round (10 minutes or so) but doesn't feel as fast because the energetic "multi-player crossword solitaire" aspect of the latter is gone. Instead game play results in a single dominos-like "worm" that snakes its way from either end across the table as it is built; Each player on their turn builds a word onto either end of the central worm from among their available tiles, merely trying to empty their hand first. Words earn no value other than being letter tiles that have been played out from one's hand. Only if one can't play does one draw more tiles.
The domino-like restriction that the beginning or ending letter of one's word to play must build on the last letter on either end of the "word worm" is a fresh mechanism in the world of word games that usually follow the Scrabble-type crossword style. It's not a more challenging game than Bananagrams, but certainly more friendly to table talk. Like its sister games Appletters loses the tile scoring that can slow down play and table conversation when compared to a game like Scrabble. In exchange there is less a sense of win satisfaction.
We never had a round that extinguished all 110 tiles in the supply. (Bananagrams has 144 tiles for comparison.) The Appletters tile supply amount and letter balance seems well considered.
WHO WILL LIKE APPLETTERS?
This game is great for playing with persons who might gravitate to more light and mentally relaxing games like Mexican Train, Uno, Phase 10, etc. We found it had great appeal as a family game: It's slightly more friendly to children because the pace, compared to Bananagrams, is slowed down (and plays much quicker than Scrabble). The compact size and portability, light but real substance, appealing packaging and low cost makes Appletters a great choice for a wide variety of people who will play board games. Bananagrams is still the best and most addicting of the "fruit bowl" word games family, but Appletters is a great choice for variety. It might not make players out of haters of word games, but certainly will appeal to those who don't like the general quietness and slow pace of Scrabble.
Appletters rules also do not explicitly forbid proper nouns like most word games. I'm guessing this is not an oversight as it allows more word creation potential given the limitation of the worm-building "train" mechanism.
LIMITATIONS
The letter tiles are still quite small compared to a domino, and easy to tip over, so domino racks are a nice accessory to use.
The game includes no hard and fast rules for scoring, which might be a turn off to game players who want the clear structure of recognizing winners. The rules do suggest playing several rounds and tallying who has won the most rounds, but makes no suggestion for scoring the value of any given word or any given round. A Scrabble fan needs to go into a game of Appletters expecting this kind of pay off is absent. I suggest just have a good time playing till someone has won three rounds.
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Overview
Players alternately add tiles to the first or last letter of a word in the middle of the table, creating a continuous "snake" of new words.For more word game fun, check out the brand new Pears in Pairs and the original Bananagrams!
For ages 5 and up.
For 2 - 6 players.