Upwords

Upwords is a word game for two to four players, designed by Elliot Rudell and dated 1982 on its Board Game Matcher page. Players take turns forming words on a grid, either eight by eight in the original and the Winning Moves new classic versions or ten by ten in most later versions. As in Scrabble words run horizontally or vertically, but letters may also be stacked on top of tiles already played, up to five high, so an existing word can change into another, for example LATE becoming CATER and then BELATED. Instead of assigning point values to letters, a newly formed word is scored by counting the tiles in it. The page lists hand management, layering and spelling as mechanics, gives a very light weight rating of 1.7, a minimum age of eight and about 90 minutes of play.