Juggler 2010

From the publisher's website: "JUGGLER is a word game for 2 to 6 players, played on a table with a special deck of 70 alphabetic cards (one letter per card, with a score value - E is worth 1, J is worth 8 ...etc). The Juggler card deck actually consists of two decks, one of 22 vowel cards with red backs and faces, the other of 48 black consonant cards.

Object/Overview

"A game comprises several ‘rounds’. At the start of each round, each player is dealt just seven of the black consonant cards; the remaining cards are placed face down on the table as two decks (one red, one black). Players play in turns around the table in a clockwise direction. The aim is to build the best word you can in your hand by drawing and discarding cards. If you turn your whole hand into a word, you can then ‘declare’, which means you stop the round, hoping to catch the other players with valuable cards they can’t use.

"After a player has declared, everybody else has just one more turn in which to make the best of their hand. When play comes back round to the declarer, all the players place their hand of cards onto the table, announcing their word for that round and scoring the total face value of all the cards they have used for their word (MINUS the total face value of any remaining unused in their hand). The scores for each round are recorded on paper and when any player’s running total hits 70 or more, the highest total wins. "