How to play Glib online
- Move the cursor: arrow keys
- Stop the letter shuffle, pick up and drop letters, confirm: Space bar
- Player 2: T/F/G/H to move, A for the fire button
- Choose game and skill level: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- One or two players: F4 (left difficulty switch: B = one player, A = two players)
- Faster time bar for experts: F9 (right difficulty switch to A)
Gameplay
The screen shows two racks of tiles. After you press Reset the letters shuffle on the upper rack until you press the fire button; then seven letters are drawn and one drops to the lower rack automatically. Move the cursor under a letter, press fire to pick it up, move it to the lower rack and press fire again to drop it. Dropped letters slide left to the first free space, which saves time but can shift a letter off a bonus position.
When your word is ready, move the cursor to the E (“Enter”) bar at the bottom left and press fire. This stops the clock so you can check a dictionary. Whether a word counts is up to the players: in a one-player game you accept it yourself, and in a two-player game your opponent accepts it with their fire button. If a word is rejected, or you give up, move to the P (“Pass”) bar instead.
Each tile shows its point value. A light blue line under a lower-rack position doubles that letter, a dark blue line triples it, a pink rack doubles the whole word and a red rack triples it. A game uses 98 letters: 14 turns for one player, or 7 each for two. The highest score wins.
Games and skill levels
There are five games, each with five skill levels, for 25 variations. The skill level sets the speed of the time bar that runs along the bottom of the screen: level 1 has no time limit, levels 2 to 4 give you 132, 39 and 26 seconds per turn, and level 5 picks a slow, medium or fast speed at random. Two players get half the time.
- Billboard: a fresh set of letters every turn; unused letters are gone for good.
- Skill Builder: only the letters you used are replaced each turn.
- Times Up: make as many words as you can from your seven letters before time runs out.
- Encore: six letters parade across the upper rack and you have to catch the ones you want; missed letters come round again.
- Over the Edge: like Encore, but letters that scroll off the screen do not return.
Tips
- Start on level 1. With no time bar you can learn the letter handling without pressure.
- Check the bonus colours before you build. A high-value letter on a triple position often beats a longer word.
- Be careful in Encore and Over the Edge. In these games a letter cannot go back to the upper rack once you bring it down.
The story behind Glib
Selchow & Righter was a long-established New York board game maker, best known for Parcheesi and Scrabble. Magazine adverts sold it as coming “from the Scrabble brand people”, available in selected stores or by mail order from QDI Games in Smithtown, New York. Collector databases credit the programming to Mike and Rich Montana. AtariAge notes that it saw very little distribution, and the box and manual are even rarer than the cartridge.
Similar games to play next
- Word Zapper – a word game played as a fast shooter
- Hangman – Atari’s classic guess-the-word game
- Alpha Beam with Ernie – a gentle letter-matching game for younger players