Directions to Word Thief

Earn as many points as you can creating words with the game, Word Thief.

Word Thief is a fast-paced card game from Faby Games Inc. The game is played with two to four players using letter cards to formulate words and acquire points. Each game comes with a set of 108 cards, each featuring a letter, a number to signify how many points that letter is worth, and one of the four suits: a spade, a diamond, a club or a heart.

Things You'll Need

• Deck of official Word Thief cards
• Score pad
• Poker chips

Instructions

1. Deal seven cards to each player.

2. Turn one card over from the remaining deck to serve as a trump card.

3. Form a word that is at least two letters long using your seven cards, and place your word in front of you. All players should do the same, and replenish their hands from the deck. So a person who formed a two-letter word will take two new cards, a person who formed a three-letter word will take three new cards, and so on.

4. Calculate point values for each player based on the numbers written on each card. For example, the word "no" would earn you two points since both letters are worth one point each.

5. Repeat Steps 3 and 4 until all the cards are used up or until the players cannot come up with any further words to form. You may also steal a word from another player if you can add one of your letters to one of their words to form a new word. You will gain the points for that new word, while the person you stole it from will lose the point value of the stolen word.

6. Secure your words from being stolen by creating words with letters of all the same suit. Such words are deemed "wordlocked" and are worth double their normal point value. They are worth triple points if they are in the same suit as the trump card that was turned over in Step 2.

7. Declare the person with the highest number of points at the end of the game the winner. The game is over either when all cards are gone or when none of the players can think of any further words to spell with the remaining cards.

Tips & Warnings

• Word Thief comes with 108 letter cards, a score pad, and 80 poker chips. You may keep score with the score pad, by issuing players one poker chip per point earned, or make use of both methods.

References

• Board Game Geek: Word Thief (1994)