Syarikat Permainan (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Games for the Whole Family

WELCOME TO THE GAME OF SPM

AUGUST 11, 1993
THE STAR

Words, words and words …

I AM impressed. And it takes a lot to impress this hardened, sceptical old games reviewer. When people used to talk about a local version of a popular imported word game, I thought it was just a Bahasa Malaysia version.

But Sahibba is not merely a Bahasa version of that other, trademarked game. It's a game in its own right. One can't help but describe it as being inspired by, or even derived from, its "parent" game. But "copied" wouldn't be the word I would choose. Sahibba, from Syarikat Permainan Malaysia (SPM), has its own set of rules; and moreover - indeed, more importantly - there are two different versions of the game.

Oh, I'm not talking about different editions: a Travel edition, a Standard edition and a Deluxe edition, which are boardgames typically different by virtue of price, size and quality of material, not playing pleasure. There is the original Sahibba game, which incidentally was SPM's first ever game when the company started all those years ago; and a bilingual version.

Both games, costing about RM24.90 usually, are of acceptable quality in terms of material and packaging. They're not as "high class" as imported games, but are a cut above other locally-manufactured games. For that price, we're not complaining. Finally, every home can afford to have a set, if you know what I mean.

Standard rules

Sahibba plays pretty much the same way as its imported cousin, except for a few differences. The first obvious one that comes to mind is that players use eight tiles, not the usual seven. In fact, the starting player or starter - determined in the same way - begins with nine letters, although he is reduced to playing with eight after he has made his first word.

The game board is made up of a square of 17 spaces on each side. The second big difference is that there are no "double letter score" or "triple word score" spaces. What you get instead are "premium" squares, where your letter or word score is doubled or quadrupled. The quadruple part took some reading of the rules before we finally understood what the rules were trying to explain.

Why didn't they just say "quadruple," instead of "two doubles"? Finally, the subtle differences are in the letter tiles themselves: don't bother looking for Zs and Qs. This is a Bahasa Malaysia game after all. Instead, you get 126 tiles, which include 24 As, two Cs, two Ks, four Ps, one W and so on.

There is a special tile marked F/Z, which can be used as either letter, but remains so once declared. There are also the four blank tiles, and two empty tiles, presumably present because of assembly line logistics. No matter, they can always be marked to replace lost tiles.

Bilingual, simultaneously

The bilingual version of Sahibba, in my mind the better buy, is also slightly different from its linguistically-limited cousin. First, the game is played similarly, except you can choose to play it in English or Bahasa Malaysia; or, best of all, in both languages.

If you have more than two players, the combinations are mind-boggling if one or two players must stick to only one language! The bilingual game is an intriguing one, and can get pretty messy once players start modifying English words into Bahasa, and vice versa.

Scoring is similar to the Bahasa Malaysia version of Sahibba, except that there are triples as well. Furthermore, some tiles have two letters. Presumably, the top letter is used in the Bahasa version, and the bottom letter is for the English version.We say "presumably" because this isn't stated clearly in the rules.

In fact, if we had any peeve against these two games it's that the rules could have been better written. They may be a cut above the terrible English we had to contend with when reviewing other local games, but SPM's rules explanations could still be improved.

Other than that, there's nothing more to add than that the bilingual version should keep many a Malaysian family occupied. Perhaps they would even be at odds with each other as they argue one English word against a Malay word....

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