Word Capture Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Setup
• How to Play
  • Word Declaration Failure Conditions
  • When the Letter Is Not on the Card
  • Word Declaration Conditions (Special Conditions)
• End of the Game
• Variant Rules
  • Variant: When the Revealed Topic Card Has No Matching Letter

Setup

Prepare the Topic cards according to the number of players:

• 2-3 players: 40 cards
• 4-6 players: 50 cards

Shuffle the cards well and make a face-down draw pile. Return unused cards to the box.

How to Play

1. The starting player flips the top card of the draw pile face up.
2. Everyone checks the topics written on the card and the letter (A-E) shown on the draw pile.
3. If the card has a topic matching the letter, declare 1 word associated with that topic. The pile also shows a word declaration condition (for example "3 letters!", "2 letters!", or "1,2,3,4,5!"), which the declared word must satisfy.
4. The last player who has not declared takes the face-up card.
5. A player who does not follow the word declaration condition takes the face-up card.
6. If 2 or more players declare at the same time, all of the players who declared each take one card.

Example: the revealed card shows a topic in the "C" position (gift certificate) and the pile shows "C" with the condition "3 letters!" - the letters match, so players declare a 3-letter word for the topic, for instance "cosmetics" (화장품) or "gift certificate" (상품권).

Word Declaration Failure Conditions

(The source slide shows a list of failure conditions as an image, with an example word "붕어!"; the list is not legible in the source and is not reproduced.)

When the Letter Is Not on the Card

If the letter shown on the pile does not appear on the revealed Topic card, quickly place your hand on the revealed Topic card. The player who places their hand last takes the revealed card.

If the letter is on the card and you placed your hand on the card by mistake, the player who placed their hand first takes the card.

Word Declaration Conditions (Special Conditions)

• "2 letters!" (or other single number of letters): All players declare an associated word made of that number of letters.
• "1,2,3,4,5!": Declare associated words made of 1 letter, 2 letters, 3 letters, 4 letters, and 5 letters, continuing in that order. Note: in a 2-player game, when this condition appears, it is fixed as a "5 letters!" declaration.
• Consonant / vowel (e.g. ㄱ / ㅏ): When a consonant or vowel becomes the topic in that round, declare a word whose first letter starts with that consonant/vowel, following the word declaration condition.

End of the Game

When 1 or fewer Topic cards remain in the draw pile so that the game cannot continue, the game ends immediately, and the player with the fewest cards wins.

Variant Rules

Variant: When the Revealed Topic Card Has No Matching Letter

When the letter does not appear on the revealed Topic card, instead of placing hands, choose a topic by one of these methods and declare words according to the word declaration condition.

1. Set topics in order: Declare in turn, following the order of the four revealed topics, according to the word declaration condition. (Example: card topics bread / gym / Hangul / wallet with a "3 letters!" condition; declarations proceed topic by topic, in order: cake, running, Korean textbook, ID card, bakery.)
2. Set topics freely (without order): Designate any one topic you like and declare according to the word declaration condition. The next player also declares a word on any one of the four topics they like. (Example with "1,2,3,4,5!": clothes, detective, teacher, locked-room mystery, emergency exit.)
3. Choose a free topic: The first declaring player arbitrarily chooses a topic other than the Topic card topics and declares according to the word declaration condition; each following player declares a word associated with the word that came before. (Example with "2 letters!": rabbit, carrot, vegetable, market, election.)