Speed Letters

Speed Letters Rulebook

Table of Contents

Place the empty box at the centre of the table. It serves as the treasure chest. Next to it, place the pile of Treasure cards and the pile of Double-Treasure cards.
Each player chooses their 26 Letter cards of the same colour, shuffles them, and places them in a face-down pile in front of them.
A game is played over 5 rounds.

Replace the Treasure pile with 1 pile of Junior Treasure cards.
Remove the letters Z, W, K, J, X and Y from the Letter cards.
Junior treasure words have 6 letters (the example on the sheet is SOLEIL, 6 letters).

Flip over a Treasure card. Everyone reads the treasure word of 8 letters that must be rebuilt. The sheet's example is ÉCUREUIL (8 letters), where the doubled letters are marked.
Place the Treasure card in the chest, face down (*except in the two-player mode; see below).
Players put their hands behind their backs and count "3, 2, 1, GO!" On GO, each player immediately takes their Letter cards.
When a player thinks they have found first one of the letters of the treasure word, they quickly drop it into the chest, face up, saying that letter aloud and loudly.
Watch out: any letter dropped in excess is a malus.
Only letters that appear twice in the treasure word may be dropped twice.
The later a letter is dropped, the more points it can be worth.
Letters must be dropped one at a time. The order does not matter.
Each player stops dropping cards as soon as they believe the chest contains the letters needed to rebuild the word.
Remove the stack of cards from the chest and flip it over.
Reveal the letters. They earn precious stones (see Scoring below).
When no player wants to drop any more Letter cards, remove the cards from the chest and flip them over as a block. The Treasure card appears at the top of the pile, showing the word to rebuild. Place it in the centre, face up.

Once the last Letter card of the pile has been revealed, it does not matter whether the word is complete. Each player takes the stones matching the cards of their own colour and counts their points.
Each Letter card that finds its place in the treasure word receives a precious stone placed on it. Distribute pearls first, then nuggets and, if the word has more than 10 letters, rubies.
If a Letter card is not part of the word, or is in excess, place it in front of the player concerned. This is a malus.
A player with maluses must return as many stones as they have maluses, starting with the most precious ones.

Point values:

pearl = 1 point
nugget = 2 points
ruby = 3 points
The player with the most points wins the round and the Treasure card. In case of a tie, there are several winners, and each receives a different Treasure card, unless one of the players has more stones in a more precious category.
Important: each player shuffles their Letter cards before putting their hands behind their backs again.

Play 4 rounds with Treasure cards and the 5th round with a Double-Treasure card.
For each round, take a treasure word with one more letter than the round before.
Junior version: play the 5th round by adding the letters Z, W, K, J, X and Y, with a word worth 2 treasures. (The sheet's example is BICYCLETTE, 10 letters.)
The player with the most treasures wins the game.
In case of a tie, the tied players play a final with a 13-letter word on a Double-Treasure card.

The sheet marks two places where the two-player mode applies: the placement of the Treasure card in the chest (marked "except 2-player mode") and a banner reading " 2-PLAYER MODE → SEE THE BOX ON THE BACK OF THIS RULE".
The two-player box is printed on the reverse side of the sheet. That side is missing from every copy available to us, so the two-player rules are not transcribed here.