No doubt you've played loads of Scrabble over the years. By now, you've probably played it on a computer or even an iPad, too. But we're guessing you've never played it quite like this.

Available from curio retailer Hammacher Schlemmer, this wall-mounted Scrabble board is five times the size of the classic game, covering some 49 square feet.

And the cost? An eye-popping $12,000, making it quite possibly the world's most expensive Scrabble game to boot.

Bridge hand (Getty Images)Counting figures as diverse as Warren Buffet, Martina Navratilova, and Dwight D. Eisenhower among its millions of fans, bridge is one of the world's most intricate and rewarding games. To succeed, you'll need strategy, memory, intuition, logic, guile, and no small amount of luck.

Small wonder it has a reputation as being hard to learn. Don't let that put you off: follow these simple steps, and you'll be ready to lay down with the best of them.

Snow days rule.

Getty ImagesActually, let's revise that: Snow days rule for kids. An unexpected day off school, a yard full of snow to play in, all your friends doing the exact same thing -- what's not to love? That's got to be enough to keep you entertained for, oh, at least a half-hour.

But then what? Never fear, parents: once the novelty's worn off and the sledding and snowball fights have lost their appeal, here are some fresh suggestions to keep the kids busy for the rest of the day.

By Mike Krumboltz, Yahoo! Buzz Log

Gamers have long memories. Take Dungeons & Dragons, for example. Since it debuted in 1974, the granddaddy of all role-playing games has been around for decades, drawing legions of loyal fans from around the world.

But, despite the board game's name recognition, it isn't a mainstream powerhouse. The makers of D&D want to change that, and they're asking their loyal users for help. A buzzy article from The New York Times explains that a new version of the game is in development, "the first overhaul of the rules since the contentious fourth edition was released in 2008."

Lego FriendsDespite producing a staggering 400 billion bricks in a mind-blowing number of configurations since production started in 1958, there's been one thing Lego has had trouble building.

A female audience.

As a company, Lego has rarely been in stronger shape, having more than doubled its 2006 revenue to over a billion dollars in annual sales, but it's still trying to reach beyond its primarily young, male demographic. Since 2007 the company's been plotting what execs are hawking as the biggest Lego launch in a decade, and this month rolls out a controversial line of over 20 new sets aimed squarely at young girls.

What's the biggest difference between board games and video games?

Pacing. Video games have to pace themselves. They're expected to be throwing new content at their players for the duration of a 10-20 hour story (or longer), and can't afford to lay out everything right off the bat.

But a board game? Under normal circumstances, players can expect to see just about everything the game has to offer in the first session.

Hasbro's latest spin-off to their globetrotting classic Risk, which hits streets this week, doesn't play by those rules.

Show me the money.Cut-throat, competitive, and unapologetically capitalist, Monopoly's winner-takes-all gameplay has made it the world's most popular board game.

But it wasn't always quite so ruthless. Believe it or not, Monopoly began its life as an anticapitalist teaching tool, spent decades as an underground pastime played by early American progressives, leftists, and other radicals, went on to aid countless wartime prisoners escape from German camps, and wound up in a ten-year trademark dispute with a Californian economist. And you thought it was all about Boardwalk.