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Zotto
(search on Board Game Geek)
- Replay Value (1-10): 4
- Fun Factor (1-10): 5
- Worth Buying (1-10): 3
This game comes with a little popper that contains a 30-sided die with letters on the faces. Each player is given a 4x4 grid. The popper is "popped" 19 times, generating a letter each time; after each pop, each player must decide which space in the grid to write that letter in. (There are three blank spaces aside the grid; you get to put up to three troublesome letters off unused to the side.) Then players are scored based on words reading across, down, or on the main diagonals; 3 points for a 3-letter word, 4 points for a 4-letter word. Bonus points are awarded for using words that no other player has. Add up all the points and whomever has the most points wins.
This game is reasonably solid but there doesn't seem to be anything really innovative in it; except for the die that randomly generates letters, this is pretty much a game that anyone could play with just pencil and paper. (In fact, a classic game exists just like this, but with a 5x5 grid and players calling out letters.) The popper itself turns out to be a pretty bad way of randomizing the die, which is too big for the popper, and therefore has this tendency to only move off a few faces from the last roll. I would rather remove the popper and perhaps use it for another game with smaller dice. Also somewhat irritating is that the game doesn't give credit for 3-letter words along the broken diagonals, but if you have the game you could always add it as a house rule, I suppose.
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