Campbells Alphabet Dice Game

Campbell's Alphabet Dice Game is a great family game that focuses on building words (in crossword fashion) out of dice. This game is for two to six players, ages eight and up, and retails for $13.95. The game contains: one instructions booklet, 216 letters on 36 dice, and scoring sheets.


The goal of the game is simple - to score the lowest amount of points. How do you do this? You try to get rid of as many of your dice as you can by making words that build upon the first word played (like Scrabble). You begin the game by splitting up the dice evenly amongst players. Then, the players take all of the dice in their hands, shake them, and roll them out on the table. All of the letters that are face up become the letters that you will be able to use to play words. After the first person makes a word from their letters, play goes to the left, and players build upon the first word. All words must be found in the dictionary to be used, unless the word is "MMGOOD". You cannot use formal names, abbreviations, or hyphenated words. Besides building, players also have the option of "slurping"; this can only be done once per round (rounds are called "servings"), however. To slurp, you take out one of the letters in a word previously played and insert your own. The word needs to make sense still! Then you take the letter that you have pushed out and you can give it to any player. This increases the amount of dice that they have left to play, and thus gives them a disadvantage. The other option that players have is to "Pass", if they cannot add to or create any words. If ALL players cannot add to or create words, everyone can "reheat" by re-rolling the dice to get new letters. Each "serving" ends when one player has placed their last die (and everyone gets one more chance to play).

You want to try and get rid of your red letters as quickly as possible, because when it is time to add up scores, the red letters count for two points (and you want the lowest score). You lose one point for all black letters that are left at the end when you are marking down the scores. When a Slurp is used, that box should be checked on the scoring sheet provided as well. The last serving of the game is called the "Souper 2x Round", because all of your dice scores are doubled (2 points for black die and 4 points for red) at the end. To win, you need the lowest overall score from all four rounds combined.

There were several things that I really liked about this game. First was the ease of game play and the convenience. This game can be tucked in your purse and brought anywhere, as it does not take up much space. It is a game you can pause and come back to without losing your concentration. We also liked the challenge of "slurping" and the non-conventional scoring process. The more you play, the clearer it is to see when you should slurp and how you can be competitive against other players. This game was easy to comprehend and should be fun for all ages, as well as families to play together! I highly recommend Campbell's Alphabet Dice Game.