SATANIX? (vintage word game/toy)

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J. J. Lodder - 21 Jul 2009 11:08 GMT

At a junk sale I picked up a SATANIX cylinder.
Dark blue, 10-sided, with 16 lettered rings that can be turned.
<http://www.vintage-toybox.co.uk/p/product/0607240731-SATANIX+-+VIEWMAST
ER+INTERNATIONAL/>
<https://www.btowstore.com/epages/BT2785.sf/en_GB/?ViewAction=View&Objec
tID=4179534&PageSize=20> (Scroll all the way down)

An article on it is at
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb346/is_2_40/ai_n29348342/>
And that's about what google throws up at first sight.

It is clearly intended as a Scabble spin-off,
with letters having values, and words to be made
by turning the rings.

Does anyone have a copy of the original rules of the game?

Jan

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Evan Kirshenbaum - 22 Jul 2009 08:08 GMT

> At a junk sale I picked up a SATANIX cylinder.
> Dark blue, 10-sided, with 16 lettered rings that can be turned.
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
> Does anyone have a copy of the original rules of the game?

I don't, and I'm not sure I can remember them, but the version I had
(which, I'm pretty sure didn't have that name) didn't have the
cylinder. Rather, the rings were magnetic and formed their own
cylinder when attached. Since they did this by having one face
positive and the other negative, they were more often used for doing
neat things with magnets than for playing the game.

The main "official" game that I remember involved one player picking
two rings without looking at them and putting them in some order to
form a word. The other (or next) player would pick another ring and
attempt to form another, longer, word by adding the new ring to one
end or the other and rotating the rings. Play would continue until a
player couldn't form a word, at which point the player who had made
the longest word got points.

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J. J. Lodder - 22 Jul 2009 08:37 GMT

> > At a junk sale I picked up a SATANIX cylinder.
> > Dark blue, 10-sided, with 16 lettered rings that can be turned.
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
> positive and the other negative, they were more often used for doing
> neat things with magnets than for playing the game.

The SATANIX thing can be taken apart, and the rings taken off,
and rearranged.

> The main "official" game that I remember involved one player picking
> two rings without looking at them and putting them in some order to
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> player couldn't form a word, at which point the player who had made
> the longest word got points.

So it could be played with players getting a few rings,
and drawing others after making a word. (Scrabble style)

Did words along a spiral count in your version?
(vertical is obviously impossible)

Jan

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Murray Arnow - 22 Jul 2009 14:43 GMT

>> > At a junk sale I picked up a SATANIX cylinder.
>> > Dark blue, 10-sided, with 16 lettered rings that can be turned.
[quoted text clipped - 41 lines]
>
>Jan

As you undoubtedly found, Google gives scant information on Satanix.
Cuil.com, however, does provide a little more information:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12344

Bing.com is still somewhat better:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Satanix.-a0164104622

The game's description agrees with Evan's memory.

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J. J. Lodder - 22 Jul 2009 22:34 GMT

> >> > At a junk sale I picked up a SATANIX cylinder.
> >> > Dark blue, 10-sided, with 16 lettered rings that can be turned.
[quoted text clipped - 46 lines]
>
> http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12344

That's a better ref to the thing I have.
I would like to know wht the piece of paper
in the picture says.

> Bing.com is still somewhat better:
>
> http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Satanix.-a0164104622

A repost of the ref I already gave.

> The game's description agrees with Evan's memory.

It doesn't. Evan had a magnetic game,
the SATANIX is just plastic.

Jan

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Evan Kirshenbaum - 23 Jul 2009 01:30 GMT

>> The game's description agrees with Evan's memory.
>
> It doesn't. Evan had a magnetic game, the SATANIX is just plastic.

I found four of the rings from my game. They are labeled

GEOSPACE WORD SPIN SCRAMBLE

BoardGameGeek has a page on that

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/19565

with an image of the rules for the "basic game"

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/495024?size=large

There the rules are that each player picks some number of "spin
wheels" and writes down the all the words they can find by spinning
and rearranging the wheels. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the game we
played with it, so there must have been non-basic games in the rules
or we made up our own. The rules also say that you only get points
for consonants, but I'm pretty sure we counted everything, under the
theory that since every letter that had a number got at least two
points, letters without numbers must be worth one.

I also remember playing a variant where if you managed to form more
than one word (on different rows) you got points for both.

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Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Other computer companies have spent
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |15 years working on fault-tolerant
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J. J. Lodder - 23 Jul 2009 12:37 GMT

> >> The game's description agrees with Evan's memory.
> >
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> GEOSPACE WORD SPIN SCRAMBLE

They are 8-sided instead of 10-sided.
Rings by themselves don't contain words,
the letter arrangement seems random.

> BoardGameGeek has a page on that
>
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> played with it, so there must have been non-basic games in the rules
> or we made up our own.

The basic game doesn't sound very exiting.
Doesn't matter to me very much,
I collect toys and puzzles anyway.

> The rules also say that you only get points
> for consonants, but I'm pretty sure we counted everything, under the
> theory that since every letter that had a number got at least two
> points, letters without numbers must be worth one.

SATANIX has A, E, I, R, S, valued 1.
Highest values are K, Q, W, X, at 12.
(a somewhat surprising selection)
Caused perhaps be letter values being restricted
to 1, 2, 4, 8, and 12.

Jan

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Evan Kirshenbaum - 23 Jul 2009 16:19 GMT

>> The rules also say that you only get points for consonants, but I'm
>> pretty sure we counted everything, under the theory that since
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> Caused perhaps be letter values being restricted
> to 1, 2, 4, 8, and 12.

For Word Scramble, for the four rings I have, I see

2: B C N R S T
4: D H P Y
6: J V W X
8: Q

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2009

SATANIX? (vintage word game/toy)