The original CUBEWORD game ― and its growing family of variants ― is the invention of Hugh Woodhouse, a former comedy scriptwriter, advertising executive, author and teacher, who holds the copyright in all CUBEWORD games.
Hugh has spent years in studying the development of table-top games. He grew up in a pre-television, pre-computer age when indoor pastimes were largely limited to card games and board games, often played around the family fireside ― a far cry from today’s high-tech computer games based on animated graphics and virtual-reality simulations played either solo or via the Internet. None the less, he detects a continuing enthusiasm for mind-sports, and a ‘braining-up’ reaction to the perceived ‘dumbing-down’ of much contemporary popular culture.
It was to meet this enthusiasm that he invented CUBEWORD ®. ‘Back in 1995,’ he says, ‘I used to play Scrabble regularly with a group of friends. But we soon found it quite limited as a game. So we changed the rules to make it more skilful and challenging ― and that’s when the idea for CUBEWORD was born. A six-faced cube opens up all sorts of possibilities you don’t get with a one-sided tile.’
So what’s the secret of a good game? Hugh Woodhouse is in no doubt. ‘It must be simple,’ he says. ‘For instance, the most basic moves in chess are only six in number ― and anyone can learn them in just a few minutes. So how many ways are there of manipulating a CUBEWORD cube? Only five ― but the number of options they offer you is huge. All the complexity lies below the surface, in the distribution of the letters, which is a formula unique to CUBEWORD.’
Hugh has spent years in studying the development of table-
It was to meet this enthusiasm that he invented CUBEWORD ®. ‘Back in 1995,’ he says, ‘I used to play Scrabble regularly with a group of friends. But we soon found it quite limited as a game. So we changed the rules to make it more skilful and challenging ― and that’s when the idea for CUBEWORD was born. A six-
So what’s the secret of a good game? Hugh Woodhouse is in no doubt. ‘It must be simple,’ he says. ‘For instance, the most basic moves in chess are only six in number ― and anyone can learn them in just a few minutes. So how many ways are there of manipulating a CUBEWORD cube? Only five ― but the number of options they offer you is huge. All the complexity lies below the surface, in the distribution of the letters, which is a formula unique to CUBEWORD.’
