A Queen’s Park family has created a word and language game to rival Scrabble, winning plaudits from the likes of Stephen Fry and Susie Dent.
Joshua Blackburn created League of the Lexicon to help relieve the cabin fever of Covid lockdowns with his two sons Sonny and Jude.
Last year, a Waterstones branch game buyer saw a prototype and six weeks later the book-chain secured exclusive rights to sell the game in UK and ordered 5,000 copies.
When the game arrived in stores it sold out in record time and was made Waterstones’ ‘Game of the Month’ in November 2022.
Stephen Fry said that the game was “a logophile’s dream”, calling it “a triumph”.
Media personality Susie Dent said that League of the Lexicon was “a fiendish delight for all word lovers”.
There are 2,000 questions in League of the Lexicon, split into two difficulty levels, and each player chooses a ‘Character’ card.
Players take it in turns to answer these questions, and collect an ‘Artefact’ card if they are correct.
The aim of the game is to collect five ‘Artefact’ cards that match the player’s own ‘Character’ card.
A player who achieves this must answer a deciding question correctly to achieve victory.
Mr Blackburn said: “The joy of League of the Lexicon isn’t just proving what you know, it’s finding out what you don’t.
“Until now, Scrabble has been the ultimate game for word lovers, but League of the Lexicon is a game about words, and there isn’t a game like it.”
The game is priced at £34.99 in Waterstones.
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