In this CrossDowns variant, we have a combination of word-game solitaire and a race. In the regular CrossDowns Race game, you simply start in a corner and head towards the center. You start off with only 5 tiles in your rack. If you happen to land on a square with 5 diamonds [ ], you get an additional tile added to your rack. If you could take the time and land on another square, you would then get a total of 7 tiles in your rack, etc.

In this variant devised by TallPaul of the Word O’Rama club owned by Callie, players have to start in opposite corners and work their way in a clockwise direction and land on each one of the 6 squares before they can head into the center bullseye. We played it as a “House Rules” game and players were honor bound to play the game in that manner.

In this version of the game, the rules are built into the game. As you see below, there are two paths. Those paths are only open to that player. Player 1 always gets the yellow path (Yellow Brick Road?) and Player 2 always gets the green (Green Mile?). The arrows indicate the direction you should go. No player can not enter the opposing player’s space to impede their progress. The blue area is open to both players at all times. In addition, only players who they have covered all 6 of their squares can enter the red square in the center.

For every square covered, an extra tile is added to your rack. When you have covered all 6 of them, you will have 11 tiles in the rack! (Don’t worry, we made the racks big enough to hold that many tiles. They won’t fall off.)

Players do not have to cover all of the squares in order. Sometimes it’s necessary to set yourself up for the future acquisition of a needed letter and continue on the quest to the next one while you wait for that particular letter to land in your rack.

The winner of the game is the one who has covered all 6 squares, successfully breached the red barrier, landed on the bullseye in the center, and gotten the highest score. If, however, that player has not gotten the highest score, the other player is the winner once that center bullseye is covered. If, when the tiles run out, nobody has covered the bullseye, the winner is the player who has the highest score.