The New York Times is starting to test its take on Scrabble
The New York Times' games team is trying something new: it's about to start testing a Scrabble-like game it calls Crossplay, but instead of folding the game into the main NYT Games app, Crossplay will be a standalone app. The game is soft launching in New Zealand on iOS on June 10th.
I was recently shown a demo of the game by Jonathan Knight, head of games at NYT, and I think it will look familiar to any fans of Scrabble or Words with Friends. The game takes place between two players. Each turn, your goal is to build a word out of the up to seven letter tiles on your tray and the letters already on the board. Every letter has a different point value, and you can boost your score by taking advantage of bonus tiles on the board that multiply your letter or word scores.
(The NYT did not provide screenshots I could publish; Knight says that a screenshot of the game right now doesn't represent where it will be when it launches more widely.)
"We're really presenting a very pure, classic, elevated version of the game"
The NYT has a few of its own tweaks to differentiate Crossplay from similar games, including different positions for bonus tiles and a different letter distribution, Kn …