Babble Royale turns Scrabble into a fight to the death
Famous last words
Here I was thinking Tetris 99 was the strangest game to be turned into a battle royale, but now you can fight to the death in Scrabble too. Babble Royale is a new Scrabble-like battle royale where 16 players fight to be the last letters standing. You have to make words in such a way that you escape a zone that's closing in, and attack other players by building words off of theirs. I honestly didn't think it would work, but man, it absolutely does.
You start the game on a big board a little distance away from your enemies. You have to build your words off a one starter letter, and gradually move your words to the centre of the board (or towards other players) to escape a hot zone. It's okay if your old words end up outside, it's just your most recent or "active" word that you need to worry about (you can also only add letters to your active word, not your old stuff).
Of course, it wouldn't be a true battle royale if you couldn't annihilate other players. So, if you can connect letters between your active word and theirs, you knock them out. Enemies drop power-ups when they die too.
Babble Royale is free to play on Steam right now. It's currently in early access so developers Everybody House Games can refine it with feedback from players. They say it's in Season Zero right now, and will launch in full with Season One in three to five months.
I'm wondering if I could rope my family into playing this over Christmas. It's a boardgame-heavy time for us, and Scrabble is always in rotation. I also always lose. Everyone's like, "Ooh I don't want to play with the journalist, words are your job," then they proceed to thrash me. I think it's time to get my own back by making them play a battle royale. Getting one up on your loved ones, the true spirit of Christmas.