War of the Words
Objective: To identify as many words as possible in a set amount of time.
For solo or group play.
Place the black (consonant) wild card in the center of the table.
Shuffle the cards (including the remaining wild card).
With the deck facing down, flip the first six cards and line them face up with the black wild card.
Each player writes down as many words as they can identify from those seven cards in thirty seconds. The words need not be formed from cards adjacent to one another.
After thirty seconds, put those cards in a discard pile and flip six more cards from the top of the deck, and each player writes down as many words as they can find in thirty seconds.
Continue the process again and again until the deck is exhausted.
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.
If two or more players are playing, the player with the highest score wins.
Possible variations: (1) place the red (vowel) card on the table as a permanent card and deal five cards per round; (2) tally scores based on the length of the words found and not based on the number of cards needed to sound out the word; and (3) shorten or lengthen the allotted time for each round (e.g., fifteen seconds or one minute).
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.