League of Lexicon

Product Information

I can’t verify the statistics, but I would guess Trivial Pursuit was one of the two or three most-played board games of my childhood. The 1981 blue Genus Edition, as I recall, was the mainstay. It was my mom’s favorite game. She read incessantly and was a dominant force navigating the pie. Of course, as wee little ones, my sister and I would play along using the cards from Trivia for Kids, a 1984 release from Whitehall Games. The six categories matched and the subject matter gave us a fighting chance until we were old enough to engage the real deal. We never won, but it was fun to stand at the foot of the mountain and dream.

What do you want to do when you grow up?” is the question adults like to ask kids. I never knew how to answer it, and still don’t. But for the moment, I make board games. And I want to make more. Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up my for the Inside Big Issue newsletterI’m neither a linguist nor a game designer, but that didn’t feel like a problem. I ran a design agency for 10 years and had two books published (one a photobook about London’s launderettes), so making the game wasn’t too daunting. I also worked with a team of question writers who shared my passion for language. More importantly, they shared my sense of curiosity, and language is endlessly interesting to curious minds. And that’s what players find in the game’s questions, which cover everything from archaic words to intriguing etymology, definitions to word trivia. The possible actions may seem limited. However, they allow for a sophisticated and surprisingly tactical game that rewards inventiveness, lateral thinking and critical reasoning. When a player chooses to add letters to an existing word, they aren’t restricted to placing them at the beginning or end. Instead, unlike Scrabble, they can insert letters anywhere in the word. Swapping letters out from an existing word for those in your hand allows you to gain the cards you need for a word you intend to play on a subsequent turn. However, by not getting rid of any cards you run the risk of running out of time to play that word.

Puzzles and games, especially those involving novelty, can stimulate and challenge key parts of the brain including language, logic, reasoning, visual perception, attention and problem-solving. I’ve not challenged my mom to revisit her old stomping grounds in years. After a few decades reading on my own, I just don’t find myself particularly drawn to trivia games. Maybe it was all the losing. Who knows? Maybe my entire reading adulthood has been fueled on a psychological level by repeatedly staring at those missing slices of trivia pie before I was ten years old.Whilst these different games are all fundamentally similar to each other, they nevertheless offer a great amount of replay-ability. The game possibilities don't end there either. Previous editions have included rules for as many as 20 additional variant rule sets, ranging from games of patience to Lexicon Bridge and more, so for the inquisitive there’s more to discover. Final Thoughts on Lexicon This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy! I jokingly call myself Analogue Dad, but the truth is, I always wanted League to be a screen-free experience. That’s what makes traditional board games so special in a world that’s always plugged in and online. There will be a global edition, written by Gaston Dorren, a lexicographer who has written two books on language; and a slang edition, written by Jonathon Green, the world’s foremost slang lexicographer, which includes numerous questions relating to Hebrew and Yiddish. Simple to learn but challenging to win, the game is for two to six players, but with six rule variations, it accommodates both solo play and large parties. And with two levels of difficulty, younger or less confident players can join in.