Last Word

Last Word was published in A Gamut of Games, a word by Sid Sackson "Last Word was born one day when I was stranded with two word-game lovers far from any letter cards, letter dice, or letter tiles. Challenged, I devised a game using only an available pencil and some sheets of paper. I was rather surprised when it gained a considerable measure of popularity among my friends, some praing it as the "last word" in word games."

Last Word is played in a grid on squares 9 x 9. The central 9 squares are filled with 9 letters at random. In his turn, each player puts a new letter adjacent to at least two others already in the layout. Using this letter and the others that are in line with it, the player forms words. The letters can be rearranged in the layout to acomplish this. He can not put a letter if he can not form a word in at least two different direction and he scores by multiplying the lenght of all words formed by that letter. It is not necessary to use all letters in a direction, but all letters used must be continuous up to the letter added.

The game ends when all four edges of the grid are reached with at least one letter.