The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide

Even if you’ve never played Lexulous, you may already know the basic mechanics of the game. Although it has some of its own unique features, Lexulous, at its core is really just a clone of the board game Scrabble (and the related mobile app Scrabble Go) and the original mobile app version, Words With Friends, which took the entire English speaking world by storm in the late aughts/early 00s. If you’re a seasoned veteran of Lexulous or either of these two games, you probably won’t learn anything new from this guide. You may even know more about the game than us, already!

But even if you’ve played a few games and want improve you skills and strategy, this guide might help you become a better player. We’ll walk you through the basics of the game, the rules and cover a few tips and tricks to get you started on your journet to become the greatest Lexulous player of all time! (You can even change your Lexulous avatar IGN to LexulousMichaelJordan, or maybe LexulousGOAT.

The primary goal of Lexulous is to score the most points (see Michael Jordan reference above). This can be accomplished a few different ways and not only will you be having fun playing a game, but you’ll be learning as you go, increasing your vocabulary and even inproving you strategic and critical thinking. Who would have thought that playing a simple game on your phone could provide all those benefits?! Anyway, back to the goal of the game. Each game ends when all 89 letter tiles have been used and the player with the highest point total wins. Sounds easy, but you don’t just want to play the first word you find in your letters. Strategic placement of words, managing your letters and even blocking you opponent from multipliers are aspects that can take you from being a beginner to an advanced player quickly.

The game starts with each playing being given 7 letters from the 89 letter tile bag to form your rack. You use the letters in your rack to play words on the board, either horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally. The game randomly chooses who goes first.

Once letters and a word are on the board, you can play tiles from your rack on your turn in a few different ways. You can add letters to an existing word, place a new word parallel to an existing word or by placing a word at a right angle to an existing word. The caveat is that all instances of more than one letter that are created by your letter placement are valid words, meaning, you can form multiple individual words with each turn you play, but they all must be valid words in the Lexulous Dictionary.

Like Scrabble and Words With Friends, there are also wildcards, or blank tiles that can represent any letter you choose. Once that blank tile is played, the letter you chose it to represent remains until the end of the game.

Lexulous keeps track of the score for you and your opponent, so you don’t have to worry about scorekeeping (no cheating worries here) but you do need to be aware of how points are scored so you can maximize the points you score on each turn.

The board contains light blue “Special Letter” squares that double the value of the letter placed on it and dark blue “Special Letter” squares that triple the value. Each letter has an assigned value on the letter tile that is visible in your rack. Black tiles have 0 score value, but can be highly valuable in playing long words, especially on a turn where you clear your entire 7 letter rack.

The board also contains pink “Special Word” squares that double the value of the entire word when you play on them and red “Special Word” squares that triple the value. These can be massive in not only boosting your score for the turn, but also in boosting your overall score to help you win the game. So always try and utilize them when possibly (obviously), but also, and this a a critical one in strategy, KEEP YOUR OPPONENT FROM BEING ABLE TO PLAY ON THEM! Even if you can score big points on a turn, leaving the door open for your opponent to play on a red triple word score can wipe out your big play or even best it.

The game ends when all tiles have been played on the board. If for some reason this can’t or doesn’t happen, there are a couple of other conditions that can end the game. If all players pass on their turn consecutively and there are no tiles to draw the game ends. Or if players pass 3 times in row, even if there are still tiles, the game will end.

We hope this guide helped you get a better feel for and understanding of Lexulous. Maybe you just want to play casually for fun with a word buddy or maybe you think competitive play is in your future, making sure you know the rules of the game, the scoring system and some basic strategy will help you on the road to improving your gameplay.