New Scrabble - A Re-examination

When the new Facebook Scrabble game was foisted on us, my first reaction was shock. It looked butt-ugly, had problems loading, and was plagued with bugs. I quickly resigned or forfeited all my active games, even though I was winning most of them. Since then, Electronic Arts (EA) has made some adjustments to the game. Once the game came back this week after a four day long server crash, I decided to play through a complete game to put it through its paces.

The first thing you see is a panel that tells you to invite your friends to the game. Unfortunately, there seems to be no clear way to get past that panel. I ended up clicking on the "Board Size" button. That brought up a new dialog, one that had a clear exit button, and I could then begin play.

Regarding the "Board Size" dialog, if you click on the buttons labelled "+" or "-", you might be surprised when nothing happens. The dialog simply tells you how to resize your browser content using the keyboard. (This is a function of the browser, not the game.) Worse, once you're done your game, you have to resize your browser content back to its original size. This was a later change to the program based on user feedback, but a hack solution at best.

Next, look at the text at the bottom of that panel. That's just one of several examples of text that overflows the intended area. Other examples are the "Create New Game" button and the 2-letter word list that ends at "RE" on my computer. Mind you, not everyone has these problems. But it does show that the designers have not taken all browser and operating system combinations into account.

Three words into the game, my opponent sent me a chat message asking me to move. I replied that I made my move about five minutes earlier. She clearly had problems with her game not refreshing when it should. During the game, she often had to manually refresh in order to continue. Another time, she had to restart the game before she could continue.

There were other nuisance bugs. But I'll spend the rest of this epistle discussing the user interface. When I first saw the new game, I was shocked by the busy graphics, distracting animations, and gaudy colors. Supposedly, EA made some adjustments to the graphics in the meantime. However, the only difference I could see was that the board had lost it's 3-dimensional look. Elsewhere, pretty much all the colors and graphics are the same. Overall, the effect is jarring and hard on my eyes.

Other aspects of the user interface are inconsistent. Compare the graphics on the left for your turn and your opponent's turn. When it's your turn, the "My Turn" box appears above the "Suggested Players". However, the "Their Turn" box renders below "Suggested Players". Further regarding the "Their Turn" box, note that the box lists the last word you played, not the last word your opponent played. Is that confusing, or what?

Overall, there are a lot of elements that are too prominent and too distracting, such as the "Suggested Players" box. Why should I care so much about starting new games while the current one is in progress? The old game allowed us to do that, however, in a much less intrusive manner. Likewise, the ratings box at the bottom is way too big and too distracting. In the old Scrabble game, the chat dialog was certainly too small. But in the new Scrabble game, the chat area is overkill. And too cartoonish. Clearly, the designers of this game wanted to squeeze a lot of content into the game. The scroll bar at the left shows that they had too little screen area for what they wanted.

Another post-release change based on user feedback was to make the count of your opponents letters during the end game more prominent. Unfortunately, this message obscures part of the board, and you have to explicitly close this dialog. Again, yet another poorly designed afterthought.

Clearly, the designers of the new EA Scrabble game failed to understand the needs of their loyal Scrabble players. Scrabble is a quiet, contemplative game. Flashy effects and distracting animations just do not serve the game well. After my game ended, I had little desire to continue playing. EA has promised a new version of the game with a choice of user interface, including the old "classic" look and feel, a gesture that I certainly appreciate. But will we get the real old game? Or just an old-looking skin on the new program? If it is to be the latter, then will we still have to endure all the bugs programming defects in the game?

There's one more difference between the original new game and the current new game. When the new game was first released, it wasn't called "Scrabble Beta". Sometime after the initial release, after all the complaints starting pouring in to the EA support forums and Facebook groups, they added the word "Beta". As if that makes our Scrabble playing experience any more enjoyable. It may well be beta quality, but obviously, EA didn't think so when they first released it. Which begs the question: Where was EA's quality control department while the game was under development?

Before the new game came out, I used to enjoy playing the old Facebook Scrabble game. However, I think I'll wait a few more months before trying out the new EA Scrabble game again. EA has simply taken all the enjoyment out of the game.

Cheers! Hans