Yesterday while standing in a long line with Maggie, I came up with a word game to pass the time. It turned out to be pretty fun, and I played a few rounds with Kathy later on as well. Here’s how it works:
- Player one selects a starting word.
- Play then alternates between player two and player one, each trying to create a new word by adding, subtracting, or changing a single letter.
- Once a word has been used once, it’s off-limits — you can’t use it again in that session.
- The player who is unable to come up with a valid move loses the round.
- Valid moves are limited to words in the dictionary. No proper nouns may be used.
- Special starting rule: if player two can’t think of a valid move from the starting word, then player one must be able to make a valid move from that word, or she loses the round. (This prevents player one from starting with “antidisestablishmentarianism”, for example.)
Example play session:
- P1: CAT
- P2: COAT
- P1: COATS
- P2: COTS
- P1: CODS
- P2: CODA
- P1: CODE
- P2: CODED
- P1: CODES
- P2: MODES
- P1: MODEL
- P2: MODELS
- P1: YODELS
- P2: YODEL
- P1: can’t think of anything, so P2 wins the round
Try it out, and let me know what you think!