Scrabulous Returns to Facebook with a New Name
Triple word score! Hasbro can now stop worry about a server overload on its Facebook Scrabble application: only two days after disappearing from Facebook, Scrabulous is back, but with a new name (Wordscraper), and minor tweaks to hopefully eliminate any copyright issues.
Obviously the name is a good start in terms of deflecting lawsuits. Besides that, the cosmetic changes to the board should help as well: the board now features circular tiles. But you might think that those seemingly minor changes wouldn't be enough to deflect a lawsuit. But there are other changes as well.
You design or use a randomly designed board. This includes placing the multiple score bonus tiles ... and the multiples now go as high as quintuple word scores. While you could design a board identical to a Scrabble board, that would be your choice, not the choice of the Aggarwala brothers.
Some users have also reported either bugs or missing features (since the site says the game is still a work-in-progress): no computer-based opponent, no way to save board designs, etc. etc.
Of course, they are rolling out updates, and this information could change at any time.
Before the takedown, Scrabulous had been added by over 500,000 Facebook users. At the time of this writing, only 3,500 users have added it, but that's possibly because they just don't know about it yet. This number could jump exponentially as people discover it. And it already has a 4.7 out of 5 rating (admittedly with less than 30 reviews) while the official Scrabble game (still) has a 1.2 rating.
BTW, if you still really want to play Scrabulous, there's still the original website, which existed before the Facebook app, though reports are the site is seemingly overloaded as well.
Obviously the name is a good start in terms of deflecting lawsuits. Besides that, the cosmetic changes to the board should help as well: the board now features circular tiles. But you might think that those seemingly minor changes wouldn't be enough to deflect a lawsuit. But there are other changes as well.
You design or use a randomly designed board. This includes placing the multiple score bonus tiles ... and the multiples now go as high as quintuple word scores. While you could design a board identical to a Scrabble board, that would be your choice, not the choice of the Aggarwala brothers.
Some users have also reported either bugs or missing features (since the site says the game is still a work-in-progress): no computer-based opponent, no way to save board designs, etc. etc.
Of course, they are rolling out updates, and this information could change at any time.
Before the takedown, Scrabulous had been added by over 500,000 Facebook users. At the time of this writing, only 3,500 users have added it, but that's possibly because they just don't know about it yet. This number could jump exponentially as people discover it. And it already has a 4.7 out of 5 rating (admittedly with less than 30 reviews) while the official Scrabble game (still) has a 1.2 rating.
BTW, if you still really want to play Scrabulous, there's still the original website, which existed before the Facebook app, though reports are the site is seemingly overloaded as well.
