Kotoba no Puzzle: Mojipittan

Mojipittan is similar in play to the word game Scrabble. The player uses tiles with hiragana to build words. The player may take turns against the computer or a human opponent or play alone. Unlike Scrabble, however, each player may place only one tile per turn as opposed to multiple tiles in the former. Tiles must be placed next to any other tile on the board, space permitting, but at least one word must be formed with each tile placed; as long as these conditions are met, a tile may be placed anywhere on the board, even if not all of the other tiles a new tile is connected to form new words.

A major difference in how the game plays in contrast with Scrabble is that words do not need to be isolated.

For example, in the play pictured above, with the bold letter う (u) being played, in addition to つうか (tsuuka, either 通過, meaning “passing”, or 通貨, meaning “currency”), つう (通 or tsuu, meaning “connoisseur”) and うか (羽化 or uka, meaning “eclosion”) qualify as words. The horizontal words that qualify in this play are ふつう (普通 or futsuu, meaning “normal”), つうち (通知 or tsuuchi, meaning “notification”), and うち (内 or uchi, meaning “inside”), as well as つう again. Forming multiple words with the placement of a single tile is termed a “chain”.

Stages have objectives such as “fill all the spots on the board”, “create twenty words over three tiles long”, or “create chains of three, eight times”. The board always has pre-existing tiles that players have to work with.