You start the game on a big board a little distance away from your enemies. You have to build your words off a one starter letter, and gradually move your words to the centre of the board (or towards other players) to escape a hot zone. It’s okay if your old words end up outside, it’s just your most recent or “active” word that you need to worry about (you can also only add letters to your active word, not your old stuff). Of course, it wouldn’t be a true battle royale if you couldn’t annihilate other players. So, if you can connect letters between your active word and theirs, you knock them out. Enemies drop power-ups when they die too. Babble Royale is free to play on Steam right now. It’s currently in early access so developers Everybody House Games can refine it with feedback from players. They say it’s in Season Zero right now, and will launch in full with Season One in three to five months. I’m wondering if I could rope my family into playing this over Christmas. It’s a boardgame-heavy time for us, and Scrabble is always in rotation. I also always lose. Everyone’s like, “Ooh I don’t want to play with the journalist, words are your job,” then they proceed to thrash me. I think it’s time to get my own back by making them play a battle royale. Getting one up on your loved ones, the true spirit of Christmas.
