Description

This game's deck has 60 cards, in 5 colored suits: black is all vowels, while red, blue, yellow and green have one 'E' and the rest consonants. In most of the games, black is considered wild, belonging to any color. There four games described.

Al Pha Bet: All are dealt 7 cards. In a turn, a player draws 1 from the draw or discard pile, lays down a word or passes, and discards down to 7 if needed. Each word scores 5 per black vowel (there must be at least 1 per word), plus 1 per colored letter if there are at least 2 of them and they're all the same color; all doubled if the word is a palindrome (spelling another word backwards). Game ends after the draw pile's gone and all pass; highest total wins.

Alpha: Deal 7 face up to each player. In a turn, a player draws 1 and makes a word or passes and discards down to 7. If a word is played, each other player in turn gets a chance to add cards from their hand to the played word to make a different word, without changing the order. The last to add to the word wins it. Words score 1 per letter, doubled if monochrome, doubled if a palindrome.

Beta: A solitaire game. Deal 6 cards out in a line, starting 6 columns. You may move individual cards to the top of bottom of another column, removing words as completed. When done moving, deal another card to the bottom of each column (or empty slot if a column is empty). Continue until the deck is gone, trying to eliminate the whole deck.

Capa: A bridge-like partnership trick-taking game. Players first bid the number of words to make, along with a color (not black). Highest bid gets his color as trump, and his partner is dummy. Player to his left leads first. All plays must follow suit if possible, unless black is led. If a word is made in the color led, the leader wins the trick; if a word is made in a different color or multiple colors, the one who added the last card to it wins; if no word is made the leader wins. If the contractors get as many words as bid, they score for all words won, else the opponents score for all the words they won; words are scored as in Alpha.