Customer Reviews

Scrabble Slam Cards

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The previous reviewer summed up the game well. However, it's important to note that the game is played by all players SIMULTANEOUSLY - which does get the pace picked up quite a bit. You have to be pretty quick in "slamming" a card down to create your new word while the other players are all trying to do the same thing. Thus the four-letter word is ever-changing. I saw the commercial for this game on TV and being from a family that loves games about to head out on a family vacation, went to Target where I saw it for about $5. We played it with four adults, three adults and two adults and during each of those scenarios, had a blast. It was fun trying to stump each other with rare four-letter words. My mom has recommended it to several of her friends who have grandchildren. It's a great game for kids learning to spell and to challenge their word skills. Warning: After several rounds of this game, you'll find yourself on the lookout for four-letter words all the time!

I very rarely play card games outside of Rummy and the occasional game of Poker. However, one Sunday morning I noticed a coupon in the USA Today insert which advertised a buy one get one free offer for Hasbro/Parker Brother's new card games. I picked up "Monopoly Deal" and this game, "Scrabble Slam".

As card games go this one is pretty simple. A four letter word is laid out on the table (CHUM, LUMP, GATE, etc) and the remaining cards are dealt out to each player. Not all letters are present in the "deck" of 55 cards. There are no Q's and no X's, although there are couple of Z's and several Blanks (which can assume the form of whatever letter you want them to take, just like the Scrabble board game). Each card has two letters on it, one on the front and one on the back, and this allows the player a lot of flexibility to change words that are on the board.

Each player then takes it in turn to lay down a single card anywhere on the 4 letter word. For instance, player 1 may spell GRIM and player two lays down a P to make it GRIP. Player 1 may respond with a T making it TRIP. As the game progresses it can become somewhat challenging to make words out and needless to say that you'll want to get rid of the harder letters as soon as possible (Z, J, K, etc.) because if that's all you have left at the end of the game you're going to be in a world of hurt. The person with the fewest cards at the end of the game wins. If one wants to up the difficulty a bit simply up the number of letters in the word. Just making it 5 letters long had a noticeable effect and made it much more challenging.

I rate this game at 3 1/2 stars. It's not really a great game but I've certainly played worse. It passes the time, which is what it was designed to do, and does so well enough.

Pros:
-Very, very easy game to learn
-Your kids will have fun and learn words along the way. Not a bad thing at all.
-At $5.00 at my local Wally World (do *not* pay the $20.00 they have listed here) this game is a great value.
-The game plays very quickly, clocking in at 20 minutes or less.

Cons:
-It's not exactly the most exciting game in the world
-Depending upon the number of players and the number of letters on the board some players may get more cards than others, and that makes it a bit unfair trying to determine who the winner will be.
-The Dealer is going to see what cards everyone is getting, although only a MENSA candidate with a photographic memory is going to be able to remember who has what.

I have no idea why the Amazon price is so out of line with reality on this product. I bought this game at Target for less than $5.00.

It is fun to play and stimulates your brain somewhat, but not to the extent of the original Scrabble game. You can modify the rules and play it with younger players (we play it with our four year old).

Amazon also lists a bunch of choking hazard warnings with this product. Unless your kid can swallow a playing card there is no choking hazard that I can find.

It is worth $5.00 but not $16.00.

I have an 8 year old, 10 year old, and 17 year old at home. My husband and I play this game with all three kids and we have so much fun we end up rolling on the floor laughing! This game gets unbelievably fast! People start screaming and slamming letters and yelling words! My 8 year old daughter has a hard time keeping up with my teenage son plays but she still loves it and laughs the whole time! We keep the iphone handy so we can look up words on [...] when we get in a spot where nothing seems to work. Most of the time that doesn't happen, unless my teenage son picks a word.. like aged. Anyway.. we love this game and highly recommend it! We are going to see if it works to put two decks together and double the people (10) at Christmas time. Will be interesting to see how crazy it gets with my grown daughters and my son-in-laws. As far as educational value, I've even learned words. If you get in a bind you end up making up a work and half the time, it's a real word and i read the definition aloud so everyone knows it for the rest of the game. You MUST get this game!

We searched all oer town for this product and couldn't find it anywhere in Modesto, Ca We ordered it online and received it promptly and in great condition (new). It ended up costing us aroun $15 shipping included. When I flew out to Dallas to see my daughter, I found the same product for around $5. Oh well.

We picked up "Quiddler" at Toys'b'Us a couple of years ago, and _still_ really enjoy playing it. I had been on the lookout for other games like it, so when I saw "Scrabble Slam!!!!!" just before xmas, I picked it up as a "stocking stuffer". Sadly, although the three of us (30-to-40-somethings) enjoy Scrabble, and love Quiddler, this one was a bust. It's a little too easy to come up with valid words with only 4 letters, and we all kept changing words so fast that it became more of a contest to see who could slap their card down first. Having the letters printed on the back of the cards is also kind of annoying, because all the other players can see what you're holding. It _might_ be fun for people who aren't as quick to think of words, or for kids who are still learning words. For three adults with IQ's well above average, it really didn't offer much. If you're looking at this and you really like Scrabble, I'd recommend you try Quiddler first. Despite having the same name, "Scrabble Slam" is less like Scrabble than Quiddler is.

P.S. - "Tag Suggestions" for this included "Julie Andrews" and "domestic violence." WTH?!?

Kids love it! (8 to 10 years old)
Fast moving.
The deluxe model has a tray for the 4 cards sections which would be helpful by preventing cards from going all over the place. You could always make a tray.

My most recent fiance and I have been using Scrabble for some good common-ground competitive quality time activity and, after collecting all of the books, the on-line computer program and a couple of different dictionaries got into playing each other to a stand-still several times a week. Along the way we collected the Scrabble Stack-Up game and the Scrabble Slam.

Scrabble Slam is not Scrabble. Scrabble Stack-Up is not Scrabble, either. Between the two I'm sure that I have a lot more negative things to say about Stack-Up. You can play Stack-Up a lot, progressing along the learning curve to understand enough to develop some effective strategy, but after a while one wonders "why bother".

Scrabble Slam has a lot more flexibility and so a couple or larger group can mess with the rules to make fast games that are more or less challenging.

Slam is a quick game. It can be made to be even faster with fewer face-up piles and it can be made to be a good bit more challenging with more face-up piles. The 4-piles that the rules specify make a good game, but it is not a game of scrabble. I expect that playing Slam is a good way to build some flexibility with words that could both improve one's spelling and prepare a young newbie for real scrabble.

I'm not sure why this game has received so many good reviews. It doesn't really fit into any niche. Serious Scrabble players will hate this game. And for people who instead want a quick and very fun game, there are so, so many better options.

Instead, I would recommend games such as No Thanks!, Coloretto, For Sale, Slide 5, Bohnanza, Lost Cities, etc. All of these games are available online here at Amazon, but you won't see them in your local Wal-Mart.

Give some real games a try.

This is not a good game, period. The goal is to make a four-letter word by "slamming" one card over another. For instance DART becomes PART. But the problem is that it is possible (and necessary) to reuse words. So, often DART becomes PART becomes DART again.

The worst part of this game is that it always is a four-letter word. There should have been a rule to start it at four but also to add one to the end or beginning to make up to a six-letter word (with some rule to trim it back to four again). Then the game might be more fun. As it currently stands, the winner of this game is a person with a tiny vocabulary or someone who has lucky enough cards to continue changing THEM to THEY to THEM again. Honestly, you will not play this game more than one or two times the first day you use it, and you'll never want to play it a second day.

A similar game to this one is US Games Snatch Word Game, and it is way more fun. That's the game I would choose.