Lexigo Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Objective
• Setting Up
• How to Play
• Which Words Can I Use?
• The Path Through The Grid
• Rules For Blank Tiles

Contents

• 100 Engraved Plastic Tiles
• 4 Game Pieces
• Drawstring Pouch

Objective

In this game, players use letter tiles to form words. The first player to use up all of his or her tiles wins the game.

Setting Up

1. Shake the tiles in the pouch to scramble them.
2. Each player selects a pawn to serve as their playing piece.
3. Each player draws 16 tiles from the pouch without looking and places 6 of them, face up, in a row in front of them. The face-up tiles are that player's letter bank.
4. Each player then places their remaining 10 tiles face down to form their stack. The stack is used to replenish the letter bank.
5. Select 6 more tiles from the pouch and arrange them in the center of the table to form a ring (See Fig. 1). These tiles are the beginning of the grid that all players must use to build their words.

Fig. 1: A sample ring of tiles at the beginning of a game.

6. Select a player to go first.

How to Play

On your turn, follow these steps:

1. Place Your Pawn (first turn only). If this is your first turn, place your pawn on any tile of the grid. The letter under your pawn must be the first letter of the word you plan to build.
2. Playing Tiles. On your turn, you must create a word that begins with the letter under your pawn and which follows a path through the grid. (See the boxes labeled Which Words Can I Use? and The Path Through The Grid). To help form the word, you may add any number of letters from your letter bank to the grid, with 4 conditions: a. You must add at least one tile to the grid. b. Each letter tile you add must touch at least 2 other tiles already in the grid (See Fig. 2). c. You must use all of the tiles you add in the word you make. d. Blank tiles are powerful tiles that you can use at any point in your word. See the box labeled Rules for Blank Tiles.

Fig. 2: The R is a valid play because it touches 2 tiles (O and P). The A is not a valid play because it only touches one tile (W).

3. Spelling Out the Word. Once you have placed all the tiles you need from your letter bank, you must move the pawn over the letters of the word, one at a time, to spell out the word for the other players. Leave your pawn on the final letter of your word when you are done. The pawn marks the letter you must use to begin the word you create on your next turn.
4. Knocking Off Other Players' Pawns. If one of the letters used in your word already has another player's pawn on it, that pawn is knocked off its space and moved to another space on the grid (See Fig. 4). You may choose where it goes, but you must choose a space with no other player's pawn on it. Feel free to place it on a difficult letter to make it hard for the other player to build a word on their next turn! Note: you may not play a word that knocks off another pawn on your first turn.

Fig. 3: If your pawn is on the L tile and you add the E and S tiles to the bottom of the board, you can choose to play either LAPSE (by following the dark gray arrows) or LEAVES (by following the light gray arrows).

Fig. 4: If you add the N and D tiles to the board and play the word KNITTED, you will knock the pawn off the E tile.

5. Can't Do It? If you are unable to make a word that begins with the letter under your pawn, you may move your pawn to any other tile in your grid and then play your turn. However, as a penalty for this, you must draw 2 new tiles from the pouch and add them to your stack.
6. Challenging A Word. If another player disputes the word you have chosen, use a dictionary to check the word. If the word is acceptable (see the box labeled Which Words Can I Use?), then the challenger must draw 3 tiles as a penalty and add them to his or her stack. However, if the challenger is correct, and the word is not valid, then you must take back the tiles you played this turn, return your pawn to its original position, and lose your turn.
7. Refilling the Letter Bank. Once you have played your word and it has been accepted, refill your letter bank up to 6 tiles by taking tiles out of your stack. Once your stack is empty, you don't refill your letter bank any more. Of course, that means you're close to winning! (See below.)
8. Trading in Tiles. If you have tiles you don't want in your letter bank, you may trade them in at the end of your turn and draw new tiles from the pouch. You may choose to trade in any, all or none of your letter bank tiles. If you trade in tiles though, you must add one extra tile to your stack as a penalty. For example, if you trade in 2 tiles, you must take back 3.
9. Winning the Game. If, at the end of your turn, you still have tiles left in your stack or your letter bank, play passes to the player sitting on your left. If you have no remaining tiles, you win the game!

Which Words Can I Use?

You may use any word found in a standard dictionary, except for proper names (words beginning with capital letters). You may not, however, look in the dictionary for ideas. The dictionary is only to be used for resolving challenges.

The Path Through The Grid

The word you create must start with the letter under your pawn. From there, you can form any path to spell out your word – you can go in any of the 6 directions from each letter and even backtrack to use letters more than once, if you like!

Rules For Blank Tiles

1. Blank tiles can be used to represent any letter you wish.
2. If you use the same blank tile more than once in one turn, that tile must represent the same letter each time.
3. On each subsequent turn, the current player may also use any blank tiles already on the grid and may designate each tile to be any letter. Rule #2 still applies.