FReNeTiC
FReNeTiC Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Get Ready
Since you're reading the instructions, you're in charge! Make sure each player has a pencil and paper, and that you have access to the internet or a dictionary.
Open up the board, then put all 96 symbol tiles – and the four FReNeTiC tiles – in the bag.
Get Going
Being in charge means you get to go first! Without looking, take any EIGHT tiles from the bag. Put them face up in the matching spaces on the board. The Atomic Numbers on the tiles should help everyone find the right places quickly.
When the eight tiles are on the board and everyone's ready, start the 45-second timer…
Now, looking ONLY at those tiles, create as many words as you can. There's no turn taking – everyone writes words at the same time.
You MUST use symbols as they appear… You can't separate letters that are together on a tile, or change their order. So if the Ba and N tiles were on the board then you could play BaN. You couldn't play NaB, though, because the a and the B would be the wrong way round.
Don't worry if there aren't many words during the first few rounds – that's usually the case!
Each word must use at least TWO tiles… So you can't have the words I, No, Be or Am on their own, for example.
You MAY play PLURALS! The S and Es tiles are handy here; e.g. LiONS and MoTiVEs.
You CAN use symbols more than once in the same word – for example, BaNaNa.
Scoring & Winning
When time's up, read out your words. Everyone else can either accept a word or, if they don't think it's real, challenge it… When that happens, you must look it up online or in a dictionary.
The Atomic Number on each tile represents the score for its use. So if, for example, you have the word Ac89Ce58S16S16, you score 89+58+16+16 = 179.
Other players should cross off any words on their list that you call out… Players must NOT duplicate your words for the whole game UNLESS they make the same word using different tiles… For example, Ag47N7Os76Ti22C6 might score you 158, but someone else might also spell it Ag47No102S16Ti22C6 and score 193.
When you finish reading your list, the person to your left reads out theirs. Carry on like this until everyone has a score.
Update scores after every round – the WINNER is the first to reach 1000 points.
After round one, the player to your left chooses just FOUR tiles from the bag, without looking. Put them face up on the board as before. Play and scoring carries on in this way for the rest of the game.
You may use all words EXCEPT suffixes, prefixes, abbreviations, hyphenations, acronyms, and foreign words that aren't in the dictionary. You must also avoid proper nouns; that is to say names of people, towns, cities, countries, and so on.
Remember: you can ONLY make words from the symbol tiles that are on the board.
If a player spots a word after the 45 seconds are up, too bad!
FReNeTiC Tiles
There are four tiles with the FReNeTiC logo. If you draw one, keep it: DON'T put it on the board.
You can use one or more FReNeTiC tiles, in ANY round, to act as ANY symbol on the board – but only once!
A FReNeTiC tile scores as the Atomic Number of the element it represents… So if it's acting as – say – an I in a word, it's worth 53 points. If it's acting as the letters Bi, it's worth 83.
You can only play a FreNeTiC tile once! After that, you must put it aside UNLESS you're using it to spell one of the elements with a GREEN border – see below.
Other Rules
There are thirteen elements with names that you can spell using the symbol tiles... They are: ArSeNiC, AsTaTiNe, BiSmUTh, CaRbON, COPPEr, IrON, KrYPtON, NeON, PHOSPHORuS, SILiCON, SiLvEr, TiN, and XeNON. These element tiles have GREEN borders... If you spell any of them, you can claim ALL of the FreNeTiC tiles that have been put aside, AND any FReNeTiC tiles currently being held by other players. You may also keep any FReNeTiC tiles you used to make the element name!
If more than one player spells an element in the same round, then the FIRST one keeps the FReNeTiC tiles.
There are also ten RED symbols on the board. When you create a word using one of these tiles, you may DOUBLE its score.
Handy Hints
Er and Y can change a lot of word endings; for example: CaTcH = CaTcHEr / CaTcHY.
Ca, Ba, Co, F, He, Li, Mo, O, Pa, Re, S, U, V and W are the most common elements at the start of words.
The ten most common element symbols in words are: S, I, N, C, O, P, Es, H, Er and U. There are no J's or Q's in the symbols of The Periodic Table – don't waste your time looking!
To see thousands of words that you can make from the tiles, simply visit www.freneticgame.com