The classic game comprises a covered tray with 16 letter cubes, each with six random letters on its sides. After shaking the cubes in the tray, players have a Timed Mission: Write down as many words as you can find in the 4×4 array within three minutes. Words count when the letters are touching vertically, horizontally, and diagonally from each other. A die cannot be used more than once or be jumped over. After the time expires, players compare their lists and cross out duplicated words. Longer words score more points.
Many variants of Boggle exist, including Big Boggle, which has 25 letter cubes in a 5×5 array. Wink Martindale adapted Boggle for his Family Channel interactive game show block in 1994note . Four contestants would try to find words on a 3×4 Boggle board, locking in their answers with a telephone keypad built into their podium. The low scorer was eliminated after each round, and the scores reset; the one one who won round 3 would win a trip and a nice prize to go along with it. It was one of the more successful shows of the block, running from March 17 to November 18, 1994.
The game was also featured in the first two seasons of Family Game Night as Bounce 'n' Boogie Boggle, in which players must jump on letters on the floor screen to spell out words.
List of variants:
- Boggle (1972)
- Big Boggle (1979)
- Scrabble Boggle (2009)
- Super Big Boggle (2012)
- Thematic Boggle (1977)
- Body Boggle (1984)
- Boggle Bowl (1987)
- Boggle Jr. (1988)
- Boggle Flash (2010): Known as Scrabble Flash in the US.
Boggle contains the following tropes:
- Adaptation Expansion: Big Boggle raises the number of dice to 25. Super Big Boggle raises it up further to 36.
- Cap:
- The points max out at 11 for 8+ letter words. Super Big Boggle has a two-point bonus for extra letters each beyond the 8-letter limit. For example, the word "absolutely" (10 letters) is worth 15 points.
- Only one unique word can be used in a round. Should more than one person write the same word, that word is worth no points.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The timer in Scrabble Boggle flashes from green to yellow to red as time depletes.
- Difficult, but Awesome:
- "Qu" and the two-letter dice in Big Boggle and Super Big Boggle counts as two individual letters.
- Any of the more unique words gives less of a chance of duplication.
- Developer's Foresight: Two rules are present to avoid forms of Loophole Abuse:
- A word cannot be counted more than once for multiple definitions (such as "tear" for rip and cry).
- A word that appears more than once on the board all count as one word.
- Interface Screw: The letters appear in random orientations once done shuffling.
- Non-Standard Game Over: No player can touch the grid or dice when in play. Subverted as the rules do not say anything about what penalties are suffered. Typically the round prematurely ends due to dice falling off or switching faces.
- Official Game Variant: While Big Boggle and Super Big Boggle raise the minimum word length to four letters, the official rules allow players to drop the requirement to three letters.
- Score Milking: Enforced by the game's official rules. Plurals, tenses, defined proper nouns (e.g. "John" for toilet) and words within words (as long it legally connects to each other) are allowed as separate words as long as the player has them written down.
- Scoring Points: All three main variants have the same point values. Three- and Four- letter words are worth 1 point each, Five-letter is 2 pts., Six-letter is 3 pts., Seven-letter is 5 pts., and Eight-letter words and longer are worth 11 pts. The game ends either by reaching 50 or 100 points (by "tournament" rules) or at whatever limit the group agrees.
- Timed Mission: Three minutes to find words. Big Boggle and Super Big Boggle has a four minute limit.
- Updated Re-release: Scrabble Boggle locks the dice inside the container so none of them will get lost. The hourglass is replaced by an electronic timer.
The game show adaptation contained the following game show tropes:
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The set backdrop would change color depending on what round it was; blue for round 1, purple for round 2, and red (or cyan in one episode) for round 3. Shuffle did the same thing, Jumble used yellow for round 2.
- Consolation Prize: For any studio player who did not win the game. The one who lost round 3 would receive the nicest consolation prize of the bunch.
- Opening Narration: "Today, one of these four players will win a fabulous trip to (insert exotic place), as we play America's most popular hidden word game: Boggle—the Interactive Game! And here's your host: Wink Martindale!"
- Personnel:
- The Announcer: Randy West, who also narrated the other three shows of the block.
- Game Show Host: Wink Martindale.
- Phone-in Game Shows: Along with Wink's other interactive games, this show had "Playbreaks" interspersed throughout the block, in which viewers could, for $4.98, ring in to play a similar round in hopes of winning merchandise, and eventually, a trip.
- Player Elimination: The lowest scorer at the end of each round would be eliminated.
- Recycled Soundtrack: This show used the exact same music package as Shuffle and Jumble.
- Speed Round: Each episode was basically an onslaught of multiple questions, each lasting 10 seconds. Points were scored based on how fast they locked in with the right answer (1 point for every 1/100 second saved on their clock, for a maximum of 1,000 points per question).
- Strictly Formula: Three rounds of five clues each, with one player being eliminated each round, and the last player standing would win a vacation and another prize. In each round, the first three clues had four-letter answers, and the last two had five-letter ones.
- Think Music: The 10-second cue for each question, which was a variant of that in the sister show, Trivial Pursuit. The cue was also present in the other two Interactive shows, although a few episodes of Shuffle used the Trivial Pursuit cue instead.
