Wordinoes
Wordinoes Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Setup
Each player takes 10 Wordinoes from the bag.
The player who holds the first word alphabetically starts by playing it face up in the centre of the table.
Turns
Play continues in a clockwise direction. The next player tries to match one of his Wordinoes to the Wordino in the centre of the table. See Wordinoes Matching below.
As in number dominoes, only one Wordino can be played per turn. Wordinoes can be played at right angles to allow the chain to turn a corner.
A player who cannot play a Wordino must say that he is "knocking" (and/or knock twice on the table). That player must then take another Wordino from the bag and their turn ends.
If all players knock in succession, the first player to have knocked draws two Wordinoes from the bag and plays one at each end of the Wordino chain. He can choose which way round to play the Wordino and does not have to follow the Wordinoes Matching rules. This player then tries to play one of the Wordinoes he holds. (If there are not at least two Wordinoes left in the bag when all players have knocked, the game ends.)
Wordinoes Matching
A Wordino can be played next to another if the two adjoining words:
- make a new word (whether hyphenated or not), e.g. POLICE + MAN = POLICEMAN.
- make a commonly used phrase, e.g. LAST + WORD = LAST WORD.
- are commonly associated words, e.g. DOG + BONE.
- are commonly accepted opposites, e.g. HIGH + LOW.
- are identical, e.g. OVER + OVER.
- rhyme, e.g. BAND + HAND.
NB. The last stressed vowel and the consonants that follow must sound the same, so the following combinations would not be acceptable: HANG + HAND, HAND + BIND or COUGH + TOUGH.
"Blanks" have the Wordinoes logo at one end. That end can be played against any word and vice versa.
NB. Words that sound the same but have a different spelling or meaning cannot be used to match words, e.g. SUN + DAUGHTER is not a valid word match.
Challenges
A player can say he is challenging another player if he thinks that player has played a Wordino that does not match.
All players (including the challenger and the player that has played the Wordino) then vote on whether the Wordino has met the rules.
- If the majority believe that the Wordino is incorrectly played, the player must remove the Wordino and take another from the bag (and his turn ends).
- If the majority believe that the Wordino is correctly played (or there is an equal number of votes), the Wordino stays in play and the challenger must take another Wordino from the bag.
Ending the Game
The first player to play all of his Wordinoes is the winner.
If there are no more Wordinoes in the bag, the game ends and the winner is the player with the fewest Wordinoes. If players are tied on that number, it is a draw and another game is needed to decide the winner.
Mega Wordinoes
If you have plenty more Wordinoes left in the bag, start the next game with the Wordino chain in place to make a Mega Wordinoes chain.
Editor's note: the publisher's page refers to "Mega Wordinoes" by name, but the captured page contains no separate Mega Wordinoes rules beyond this sentence. None have been added here.
Variations
The publisher's own "Game Variations" page, transcribed as printed.
As in number dominoes, word domino players will naturally develop variations on the rules. Some examples are below. If you have developed other variations, the publisher asks that they be sent to [email protected] for inclusion on the page.
Face Up or On Edge? By playing with the player's Wordinoes face up on the table, players can look at their opponents' Wordinoes and try to play Wordinoes that make matching difficult for their opponents. Alternatively, players can decide to play with Wordinoes on their edge so that the players cannot see each other's Wordinoes.
More or Less Wordinoes? In normal Wordinoes, players start with 10 word dominoes. Wordinoes matching can be made initially easier by increasing the number of Wordinoes a player starts with (to say 15), and more difficult by reducing the number (to say 5).
Allow Homonyms? A word is a homonym of another word if the first word sounds the same as the second word but has a different spelling or meaning, e.g. SON and SUN are homonyms of each other. In normal play homonyms cannot be used to match words, e.g. SON + DAUGHTER would be a valid word match (by word association) but SUN + DAUGHTER would not (because there is no word association between SUN and DAUGHTER). To make word matching slightly easier, players may decide that homonyms are to be allowed.
Multiple Play Wordinoes. Instead of allowing players to play just one Wordino per turn, players are allowed to play two (or a greater number) per turn.
Wordinoes Patience. This is where one player tries to play a specified number of Wordinoes (or all of the Wordinoes in the bag) without holding more than 10 Wordinoes at any one time. Again, the number of word dominoes a player is allowed to hold at any one time can be adjusted to make the game easier or more difficult.
Wordinoes Solo. This is a variation on Wordinoes Patience where three or more players are playing Wordinoes Solo and the winner is the player who has played the most Wordinoes when there are no Wordinoes left in the bag (and the number is reduced by those Wordinoes that are successfully challenged by the other players in the normal way).