1. An apparatus for playing a word game by a number of players, comprising: a gameboard having a playing surface divided into a plurality of distinct word-building structures, said word-building structures having substantially identical size and shape and each being further subdivided into a plurality of playing spaces arranged in a grid shaped array, and a plurality of distinguishable sets of word-forming playing pieces, the pieces of one set being identifiable from the pieces of any other set so that each of the sets is adapted to be assigned to a player and is traceable to said player during and after game play, each playiny piece displaying a single alphanumeric character of a spoken language in which the word game is to be played, and dimensioned for placement within one of said playing spaces, each of said distinguishable sets containing the same number of playing pieces displaying alphanumeric characters as the number of playing spaces in any one of said word-building structures, each said set comprising substantially all the alphabetic letters of said spoken language, and having the same distribution of alphanumeric characters among said playing pieces.
1. An apparatus for playing a word game by a number of players, comprising: a gameboard having a playing surface divided into a plurality of distinct word-building structures, said word-building structures having substantially identical size and shape and each being further subdivided into a plurality of playing spaces arranged in a grid shaped array, and a plurality of distinguishable sets of word-forming playing pieces, the pieces of one set being identifiable from the pieces of any other set so that each of the sets is adapted to be assigned to a player and is traceable to said player during and after game play, each playiny piece displaying a single alphanumeric character of a spoken language in which the word game is to be played, and dimensioned for placement within one of said playing spaces, each of said distinguishable sets containing the same number of playing pieces displaying alphanumeric characters as the number of playing spaces in any one of said word-building structures, each said set comprising substantially all the alphabetic letters of said spoken language, and having the same distribution of alphanumeric characters among said playing pieces. 2. An apparatus as in claim 1, wherein each of said sets of playing pieces further comprises at least one blank playing piece.