Staying a Spell at the Addictive Scrabble Site

Harold Ramis, actor and director, used to be a Super Mario Bros. junkie. But these days, he gets his gaming fix from Scrabble--electronic Scrabble, that is.

Ramis was flexing his word acumen last week at the House of Blues on Sunset Boulevard, taking on “Ghostbusters” pal Rick Moranis, who was at an Internet cafe in New York, for the bicoastal premiere of a new Internet-playable Scrabble CD-ROM, produced by Hasbro Interactive.

Both Scrabblers were shepherded by top-ranking Scrabble tournament players who had come to compete against the world champion: a computer software program that’s part of the CD-ROM product.

Moranis opened the Internet game with the word “retina” and soon gained the upper hand--albeit with heavy assistance from two-time National Scrabble Champion Joe Edley--a spelling “tailored” for a tile-tilting 66 points. Ramis, who opted to play with minimal help, made a valiant comeback with the word “hadj” for 31 points.

The simulcast included links to the Official Scrabble Crossword Game Web site (https://www.scrabble.com) where players who have the new CD-ROM can meet for Internet play. Hasbro executives predict the Scrabble Web site will gain a following similar to their Monopoly site, which gets an estimated 25,000 to 50,000 hits a week.

Solitary players can test their skills against Maven, the software program, which can be adjusted to five different skill levels. Ramis admits he’s been hooked on Scrabble for the last few weeks. When playing at the game’s expert level, Ramis lowers the volume on his computer speakers so the explosive sound effects of tiles on the board don’t wake his wife.

“When I think she’s asleep, I sneak into my office to play,” he says. How much does he play? A typical evening finds him playing three to five games of Scrabble, with a short break for solitaire and maybe a few tries at Super Mario. That’s about three hours of gaming a night. But we won’t tell.

Freelance writer Troy Corley can be reached via e-mail at Troy Corley@prodigy.com