Description

A rummy-type word card game that rewards long words.

It has 175 cards, each with two letters; you can use either one when making words. The upper left corner has the letter used in upper case; the lower left has the other letter in lower case, so you can tell whether you want to reverse the card to use the other letter. The game also includes four two-piece foot-long wooden racks to hold cards.

There are enough cards that the instructions say don't bother shuffling. Deal 15 each, and players have 3 minutes to form them into words. In a turn a player draws 1 from the top of the draw or discard pile, and discards 1 unless they go out. A player goes out by making all 16 cards into words of 2 or more letters; any player may claim the top discard out of turn if they can use it to go out. When a player goes out, the hand ends and others have 3 minutes to make the cards they have into words.

Words are scored according to length: 2-3 letters gets 1 point; 4 gets 2; 5/4; 6/7; 7/11; 8/16; 9/22; 10/30; 11/40; 12/52; 13/68; 14/90; 15-16/120. The one who goes out gets a 30 point bonus if they go out with 1 word; 20 with 2 words; 10 with 3 words. If a word has 3 or 4 letters (e.g. paraLLeL, SciSSorS), it gets a 15 or 25 point bonus respectively. Two-word couplets that are grammatically correct ("spring flowers") get a 10-point bonus. Play an agreed number of rounds, and the high total wins.

The rules say you can register the game and get rules for the advanced game Academie Royal. They also say this is "Part I of the Cavendish Academie System"; I don't know if other parts were published.