My office deskmate is Isaac Aronow, the editor of the Gameplay newsletter. Our working relationship has always been cordial, and has been made easier by the fact that we tend to find agreement in most topics of conversation: the best brand of shoe, say, or worthwhile indie rock albums, or a reasonable price per pound for oyster mushrooms (no more than $9). But upon the release of Crossplay, The Times’s first two-player word game, Isaac and I found ourselves on opposite sides of an important issue. We were suddenly opponents, not only in the game, but in a crucial strategic opinion: whether it was possible to have bad tiles. See our debate below, and feel free to decide whose side you’re on. This conversation has been edited and condensed. Isaac: My hot take on Crossplay is that it’s nearly impossible to have bad letters. Sam: Wrong. Isaac: Sure, sometimes you’ll have the misfortune of three Es and four As, but if your goal is no fewer than 15 to 20 points a move, there’s almost never a situation where that’s out of reach. Sam: The quality of tiles is always relative to the existing board. So it is very much a bummer to have those Es and As if you’re working with a defensive player who has left you with a V or a J or a Q to work with. Isaac: Skill issue. Sam: Let the record show that I beat you in the last game. Isaac: Spending some time learning the words that contain trickier letters is one remedy. Like Q words without U — QI is a popular one — or three-letter V words like VAR or VUM. I think C is the worst letter to draw. It’s worth only three points and there are no two-letter words that use it. No CO, CA, etc. Sam: So you’re saying I’m right. C is a bad tile, case closed, Sam wins. Isaac: Regrettably lots of words that use C also use K, which is worth six points. Combine that with a double or triple word, and you’re crushing. You’ll note I just played WRECK in our game for around 40 points. Sam: I will gracefully return a concession since you admitted that C was a bad letter and say that learning how to play between and around words is as, if not more, important than making long words or having high-point tiles. Isaac: That is definitely true. You might not have bad letters, but I think there are times where you might only have bad moves. Sam: I think this also calls to question the idea of what is “bad.” Are we saying “bad” means “letters that you can’t make high-scoring words with”? Or “letters that it’s hard to make any words with at all”? I think Crossplay rewards compromise on either end. The lower-point tiles make more words, but the more constrained letters are worth a ton. Isaac: The worst thing is having a sweep — where you can spell a word using all seven of your tiles — and nowhere to play it. Sam: I had ADOPTED in my tile rack during a recent game and couldn’t find a place for it on the board. It felt cosmically unfair. Isaac: Cross Bot always shows me where I could have played it, too. It taunts me. But I feel redeemed when it tells me that, no, I couldn’t have played that word anywhere. Sam: I will say that, ultimately, I have found ways to make my letter sets work. I have yet to run into a situation midgame of playing, like, a three-point word. Isaac: I think that’s the lesson here: There is always a way to make a decent move. Even when you’re staring down at Q, X and J. Sam: Hang on, I’m checking the app to see if that’s true because I think it’s my turn in our game.
Solve the Midi
Cryptogram |
