Description

An ingenious cross between Risk and Scrabble Junior. From the instructions:

"Worldmaster: A game of strategy for two or four players [in partnerships]. Build a CONNECTED EMPIRE, covering at least half the letters of each of its countries with letters of your colour -- Red or Blue. Numbered circles tell you how many letters you need to cover."

The board consists of a Risk-like simplified map of the world. Countries are labelled like words on a Scrabble Junior board; each letter is enclosed in a box the size of a Scrabble tile. Each country also has a numbered circle indicating half the length of the country’s name (rounded up; two circles for countries whose names have an even number of letters). Each player (or partnership) receives a bag of letter tiles, which contains just enough to cover all the letters on the map.

High-speed rules summary from the instructions:

RULE 1: In each turn place one or more letters, anywhere, or store up all of them. End the turn by drawing four, always.

RULE 2: Earn country "flags" -- coloured markers -- once you’ve covered as many letters as the circles show. (Only one flag of your colour in any country! The enemy may share countries with two circles, if you don’t prevent this.)

RULE 3: Flags on EIGHT connected countries wins -- or ELEVEN in games with the Airports rule. (Two extra letters earn an "airport ring" over the flag. Groups connect by air when each group has an airport.)