Alfapet

Alfapet was the original Swedish name for the popular word game Scrabble.

An edition from the 1990s. The motto Det Klassiska Korsordsspelet means "The classic crossword puzzle game"

In 1954, the Swedish board game company Alga was granted a license by Mattel to market Scrabble in Sweden. For almost four decades, Alga sold the game under the name Alfapet (wordplay on alfabet, the Swedish word for "alphabet".)[1] In the 1980s, Alga was bought by BRIO, which retained Alga as its board games division.[2]

In the early 1990s, Mattel rescinded the BRIO/Alga license in order to market the game in Sweden themselves as Scrabble.[3]

However, BRIO/Alga retained the right to the name Alfapet, and quickly designed and marketed a similar word game using that name.[1]

The new Alfapet word game differs in several ways from the international game of Scrabble:[4]

  • The board has 17 x 17 squares (instead of 15 x 15).
  • There are more bonus squares (even quadruples) and also reduction squares.
  • There are 120 tiles (instead of 100) and the values differ from the Swedish Scrabble set.
  • The letter Q has a separate tile (but can only be played with a blank tile in Scrabble).
  • There are several rule differences.

See also

Sources
  1. "Varför bytte man namn på Alfapet?", Expressen (in Swedish), 2009-11-19, retrieved 2020-02-19
  2. "Alfapet". Board Game Geek. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
  3. "Så blir du en vinnare i ordspel", Fria Tidningen (in Swedish), 2012-03-22, retrieved 2020-02-19
  4. "Hem: Välkommen!". Svenska Scrabble förbundet (in Swedish). 2019-11-05. Retrieved 2020-02-19.
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