11. A word game device having an objective to form or find words, comprising: a playfield that includes a plurality of playing positions, wherein a playing position is used to display a character of an alphabet, wherein an initial set of alphabet characters are assigned to playing positions to form at least one game word, and wherein at least one game word is scrambled by having at least one character shifted into a position that does not lie along the same axis common to the other characters in the word, a microprocessor with a computer-readable medium encoded with a computer program to control the operation of the device, a plurality of switches to enable a player to interact with the device, a computer program segment that is responsive to the activation of a switch, and which implements means for replacing alphabet characters assigned to playing positions, and a computer program segment to determine if a game objective has been achieved.
11. A word game device having an objective to form or find words, comprising: a playfield that includes a plurality of playing positions, wherein a playing position is used to display a character of an alphabet, wherein an initial set of alphabet characters are assigned to playing positions to form at least one game word, and wherein at least one game word is scrambled by having at least one character shifted into a position that does not lie along the same axis common to the other characters in the word, a microprocessor with a computer-readable medium encoded with a computer program to control the operation of the device, a plurality of switches to enable a player to interact with the device, a computer program segment that is responsive to the activation of a switch, and which implements means for replacing alphabet characters assigned to playing positions, and a computer program segment to determine if a game objective has been achieved. 20. A word game device as recited in claim 11 , wherein said plurality of playing positions form a two-dimensional array.