Noise Floor
Objective: To identify as many words as possible from a grid of cards in a set amount of time.
For solo or group play.
Mix the cards (including the two wild cards).
Lay out sixteen cards face up in a four-by-four grid.
Each player writes down as many words as they can create from those sixteen cards in one minute.
Each card that contributes to the formation of a word must be adjacent to the previous card in the word, whether vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Cards can be used twice in the formation of a word, and the same cards can form more than one word.
Tally your score(s): 1 point for each two-card word found; 3 points for each three-card word found; 5 points for each four-card word found; 7 points for each five-card word found; and 10 points for each word found that is six cards long or longer.
If two or more players are playing, the player with the highest score wins.
Possible variations: (1) include one or both wild cards among the sixteen cards; (2) alternate the columns or rows so that one is filled with consonants and the next with vowels, so that there are eight consonants and eight vowels in each game; (3) increase or decrease the size of the grid by one or more; and (4) tally scores based on the length of the words found and not based on the number of cards needed to sound out the word.
Note: As words can be pronounced differently depending on accent and dialect, there can be more than one way to transcribe a word phonetically. Thus, players should agree in advance on how to resolve questions about acceptable respellings. For example, they might chose to consult Dictionary.com or another dictionary of their choice for standard phonetic transcriptions of words.