Making really long words is in your best interest!
Cooperative means that there is no real winner or loser. You don't play against other players here; you play with them.
There are two schools of thought on how to start a new game. Before we get to that, though, one thing to not do is to just play a random word through the center of the board.
Play a seven-letter word, starting at the center square (H8). The only restriction on the word is that its plural form should also be a word. Thus, for example, DUNGEON would be a good choice, but RELIANT would not be, since RELIANTS is not a word. The word can also be longer than seven letters. The longer, the better, in fact. The key to the first play is that the word must end at H14 (the square immediately to the left of the pink tile at the center-right of the board). Therefore, 8-letter words would start at H7, 9-letter words at H6, and so forth. As before, the reasons for this will become clear shortly. Occasionally, if you're lucky, you might be able to place a word that takes more than just an S. For instance, PERJURE will take a D, R, or S at the end.
These colored squares are key to achieving high-scoring games. More specifically, set-ups of these squares are the key. A set-up is essentially defined as follows: a word that's played immediately adjacent (in any direction) to a colored square.
The most important sets in the game are, by far, the sets utilizing two TWS (pink) tiles, with a DLS tile in between them. In any game, such a set is possible only four times. To achieve a high score, all 4 of these sets must be employed.
1. Always read the chat!!
2. Don't play any S tiles unless you're making one of the 8-letter "trips".
3. Don't play any small words on the outer two "layers" of the board.
4. Try not to play words in areas of the board that are already set up.
5. Try to use higher-value tiles for the set-ups and key DLS squares.
6. Play the right tiles at the right time.
7. Know all valid two-letter and three-letter words.
8. Don't play (most) words all at once.
Except for the cases listed below, words should be played in the shortest increments possible, for the maximum number of points. For example, say you wanted to play the word PINTA somewhere. You could play it all at once, which would be worth 7 points. However, a better strategy is to play the word as follows: PI, then PIN, then PINT, then PINTA. Even though the end result is the same, here you would score 22 points in total because of tile re-use. If you combine that with the tip immediately below, you could even push that to 24 points! Doing this over the course of an entire game might seem tedious, but it will add, on average, upwards of 100 extra points or thereabouts over the entire game! The only types of words that should be played all at once are:
The four trips (so the full "nine times" multiplier is in effect)
The starting 7-letter word (so you get the extra points bonus)
Most 4-letter DWS/TLS sets (though see that section for an exception)
Some "secondary beginning" words (after you've played the starting word, sometimes you can play another long word downwards towards another trip. To play this word, if you use over 7 new tiles, you should play it all at once to get the extra points bonus. If you can only play another 7-letter word, thereby using only six new tiles, it should be played in the shortest increments possible, because there's no bonus for using only six tiles.)
9. Play single-letter words in the "non-intuitive" direction.
10. Take advantage of the Scribble archives to learn strategies.
11. Save the best possible word for last.
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