Rules for Control Word

The dice are rolled. The draw die (white) sets how many tiles are drawn to the rack at the end of the round. The replacement die (red) sets how many tiles may be played in the replacement phase during this round.

Place the draw and replacement dice on the round counter mat to indicate the current round number.

Starting with the first player and proceeding to the left, each player plays a word using any number of tiles from the rack. In the first round, the first word must be played crossing one of the words on the start mat. All subsequent word phase plays can cross other played words or words on the start mat.

A word must be an English-language word. Players should agree upon a dictionary to use for resolving challenges. Proper nouns, foreign-language words not adopted into English, acronyms, and abbreviations are not allowed. In short, the rules for allowable words are the same as the vastly more popular word game that this game resembles.

Word placement rules from that other crossword game apply. New words are formed by

• Adding one or more letters to a word or letters already on the board.
• Placing a word at right angles to a word already on the board. The new word must use one of the letters already on the board or must add a letter to it.
• Placing a complete word parallel to a word already played so that adjacent letters also form complete words.

In Control Word, Unlike other word games, each letter is of equal value. Longer words score more points. 2 and 3 letter words score no points. (2 and 3 letter words can be controlled by a player for the purpose of the end-of-game tie-breaker.)

Note that adding to the beginning or end of a word is an action of the word phase rather than the replacement phase, as in this example:

A player may choose not to play a word, saving letters for the replacement phase.

After the word phase, the starting player begins the replacement phase. Passing to the left, all players take their replacement phase actions.

Start with the last player and pass to the right?

Using any remaining tiles from the rack, replace other tiles on the board. These can be tiles in other player colors or any blue tiles – including the spaces on the starting word mat. To replace a letter on the start mat, simply place a tile in your color on top of that letter on the mat.

More than one tile in a word can be replaced in a turn, so long as all words are still words at the end of each player's turn.

The simplest replacement phase action is to replace a letter of a different color with the same letter of your color. Replacing a letter with a different letter is allowed, but the newly formed word must be in the dictionary. As an example "playing" can be changed to "praying" by replacing the "l" with an "r" of your color.

Multiple letters can be replaced in the same word. If one or more of those replacements are of different letters, the word must still be a word at the end of your turn. For example, "repast" can be turned into "repent" by replacing "as" with "en" in your color.

If the replaced tile is a crossing tile, i.e. it is part of two words which cross at that point, both words must be valid words after the replacement.

Replaced tiles are discarded (not returned to the bag).

A player may choose not to play in the replacement phase.

After the replacement phase, each player draws back up to the rack limit determined in the roll phase.

At any time, as a free action, you may replace a tile from your rack with a tile from either the bag of blue vowels or the bag of blue consonants. Simply return one of your tiles to your bag (it is not discarded) and draw a tile from one of the blue bags. You may repeat this free action any number of times.

Using the blue tiles in this way can help repair a rack lacking either vowels or consonants, allowing you to play a longer, more valuable word. The drawback is that the word you play will have fewer tiles of your color, weakening your control over the word.

The only way to remove a blue tile from your rack is to play it in a word. You may not return a blue tile to its bag when replacing a rack.

At the beginning of your turn, you can opt to return your entire rack of tiles – except for any blue tiles on your rack – to your bag. Shake the bag to mix the tiles, redraw to 2 less than the current rack limit (but a minimum of 5), then proceed with your turn. If you are still unsatisfied with your rack, you may redraw as many times as you like to that same number of tiles, but each subsequent draw costs two  ⁠penalty tokens⁠ .

Any word played in phase 1 or phase 2 can be challenged. The challenge is resolved using a dictionary agreeable to all players. If the challenged word is allowable, play continues. If the challenged word is not allowable, the player who played the word must withdraw the tiles played (resetting any changed tiles) and take one  ⁠penalty token⁠ . That player does not loose a turn and may make a different play immediately.

When a word is played it scores immediately according to the "When played" column.

End game scoring depends upon whether a player controls a plurality or majority of letters in the word.

Formula

Word length = 2 or 3 gets 0 points. For word length 4+:

• n = word length
• x = n-3
• in-game score = (x^2 - x + 2) / 2
• plurality = in-game * 2
• majority = in-game * 3

Each J, Q, X, or Z in a word scores a 4 point bonus for the player playing that word. This bonus is scored when the word is played and only scores for words which are 4 or more letters long.

• Score each word on the board that has plurality or majority control according the table above.
• Each  ⁠penalty token⁠  counts for -5 points.

Highest score wins. Fewest  ⁠penalty tokens⁠  is the first tie-breaker. Most words controlled is the second tie-breaker.

Here's the end game after the first play test of Control Word!