Last Letter

1What you need

Your letter deck, a 10-second timer and a way to track points. Choose a dictionary for challenges.

2Set it up

Shuffle the deck. Choose a starting player and play clockwise. Flip the top card: its letter starts the first word of the round.

3How to play

1. The starting player has 10 seconds to say a word of at least 3 letters beginning with the revealed letter.
2. The next player has 10 seconds to say a word starting with the last letter of the previous word. Continue clockwise. Spoken words do not need to be made from cards.
3. You cannot repeat a word already said in this round. If you repeat a word, say an invalid word, or run out of time, the round ends and you receive 1 penalty point.

4Scoring & winning

Play 10 rounds. After each round, flip a new starting card and let the player after the one who took the penalty begin. If the deck runs out, reshuffle the revealed cards. The player with the fewest penalty points wins. Ties are shared.

5The finer points

No proper nouns, abbreviations, hyphens or apostrophes. Dictionary-listed plurals and verb forms are allowed. Pause the timer for a challenge and check the dictionary. A valid word stands and play resumes with a fresh 10 seconds for the next player. An invalid word ends the round with a penalty for its speaker.