How To Play – Summary

Each player’s turn has 4 parts :-

1. Pick up a card from stock or discard pile
2. Play words face up in front of them
3. Discard 1 card, if player has any left
4. Restock from stock to give player 5 cards again

Play until a player has played all their cards and there are no more cards left in stock nor discard piles. Score all players, including bonuses and doubles!

Highest score wins!

How To Play – Full

The player to the dealer’s left must pick up a card, keeping their cards private, they should try and make words using the letters on their 6 cards and play them face up in front of them calling out the word(s) they are playing. They don’t need to use both letters on each card, just cover up a letter they don’t need. They can lay-off letters against other players’ words to make longer words.

A player can make as many words as they like in their turn, the more letters and cards they use the more points they make. They can use all 6 cards if possible. Trying to make words using letters of the same colour(a flush), stars and long words will help to boost your score!

Play continues in a clockwise manner until all stock and discard cards have been used and a player has played their last card and calls ‘FEZ’.

The scores from each player’s played words are totalled, unplayed cards in a player’s hand are ignored and do not score.

The highest scoring player wins.

Scoring

• The points for each letter are added up to give the word score. Points for each letter are displayed underneath the letter, known as face value. Only letters in the played word are counted, i.e. if only 1 letter on a card is used in the word the unused letter’s face value is not scored. The face value of a blank is zero.
  

  

  The last ‘E’ is ignored because it is not part of the word.

• Any letters layed off against another player’s word(s) are counted as double face value if they follow the same colour and maintain the flush of the word they are extending. If they do not match another player’s flush they only count as face value, the original flush word is still counted as double(except when playing the nasty rules!)
  

  

• Points left unplayed in a player’s hand at the end of the game are deducted from their score. The face value from both letters is deducted. Note: deduct from just 2 letters, not from all 4 letters on the card.
  

Scoring Bonuses & ★s

Bonuses and doubling are where the strategy and fun is to be had in FEZ. Doubles are cumulative!

• Flush Double – A word with letters of the same colour gets a double word score and is called a flush double. If a player subsequently adds a letter(s) that don’t follow a flush colour, they will not score a flush double. Blanks must follow the flush colour to allow the word to be a flush.
• Star Double – If a star of differing colour is part of a word it will double the word score, this is a star double.
• Flush Star Double – If a star added to a word is also the same colour as the flush this is a flush star double and will count as a double double one double because a star doubles the word score and another for the star being the same colour as the flush.
• All Flush Bonus – If at the end of the game all words played by a player are flushes or scored as flushes (letters layed off against other players words) they receive a +30pt bonus at the end of the game. A star double does not spoil an all flush bonus, i.e. as long as the letters are the same colour a word is a flush.
• 7 Letter Bonus – Any whole words played of 7 letters or more score a +50pt bonus for each subsequent letter!! 7 letter word scores a bonus +50pts, 8 letter word scores +100pts, 9 letter word +150pts, etc. Letters laid off against other player’s words do not count, only full words played in 1 turn count for the +50pt bonuses.

Example Bonuses & ★s

Calculate face value letter scores first, then 7 letter bonus points, then apply any doubles. Doubles are cumulative and can give BIG scores! Go BIG with a 7 flush letter bonus and a couple of stars!!

Examples

Rules

1. Words must be 2 or more letters. A player calls the word they are making and places it on the table in front of them. Unused letters on cards are ignored.
2. All words labelled as a part of speech (including those listed of foreign origin, and as archaic, obsolete, colloquial, slang, etc.) are permitted with the exception of the following: words always capitalised, abbreviations, prefixes and suffixes standing alone, words requiring a hyphen or an apostrophe.
3. At the beginning of a turn a player must draw a card from the stock or discard pile, if there are any. When the stock pile is empty the cards underneath the top card of the discard pile will be turned over face down to form a new stock pile. Use the last upturned discard if needed, at which point the 1st person to play their last card ends the game and scoring begins
4. A player does not have to play a word if they cannot make a word or choose not to play any. They must still discard a card to leave 5 cards in their hand, they cannot discard the same card they picked up if they chose from the discard pile.
5. A player can choose to forfeit a turn by discarding any number of cards in their hand and replace with new cards from stock. Their discarded cards are placed at the bottom of the discard pile.
6. A player must always have 5 cards in their hand at the end of their turn unless the stock pile and discard piles are empty in which case play continues until a player plays their last card.
7. Played words can only be extended, no letters can be re-arranged.
8. A player can only play a star onto their own words, it can appear anywhere in the word and does not have to be at the beginning or end of a word. You add E*S to your FIN to make FINES.

9. When a player is playing words, they may also lay off their cards by playing letters that would extend their own or other player’s words.

For example, playing ‘s’ or ‘ing’ to an opponent’s word ‘play’ forming ‘SPLAY’ or ‘PLAYING’ would allow the player to score points for ‘S’ or ‘ING’ even though they are not words. They do this by calling the word and playing the cards above and under the original word. Any other players must then build on the new word ‘SPLAY’ or ‘PLAYING’ and not the original word ‘PLAY’.


10. Any player may challenge any other player’s words but must do so before that player starts to draw cards to refill their hand. It is etiquette for a player to ask if everybody is happy before refilling their hand from the stock pile. Any challenged words that are not in the dictionary should be put back into the players hand and the player finishes their turn, after discarding a card(chosen randomly, sight unseen by the challenger if they hadn’t already discarded), forfeiting a chance to play words and losing an opportunity to score.

Nasty Rules

1. 😡 When laying off letters to other people’s words, if the letter(s) are not the same colour as the original flush word, the original player loses their flush and only scores single points.
2. 🤨 Scoring a star double(different colour star) spoils an all flush bonus.
3. ⏳ Players have a maximum time limit of 30 seconds for their turn, from the moment they pick up a card to the moment they discard a card or play all 6 cards.
4. 😢 Score of letters left in a players hand are deducted from that player’s score and added to the winning player’s score.

Hints & Tips

• When playing with more than 1 FEZ pack, there will be more cards and more words played. If you don’t have room for all the words to be displayed on the table, score each word as it is played and remove the cards away from the game so they are no longer included, this means playing the No Layoffs variation. We suggest keeping score by writing the word and its score with a supscript ‘f’ to indicate if the word is a flush and a supscript number to indicate 7+ letter lengths.

Bob			Carol
word	score	total	word	score	total
placing7f	12+50×2 = 124	124	★fin	6×2 = 12	12
sing	5	129	playf	9×2 = 18	30

• We suggest shuffling all packs together and having more than 1 stock pile splitting into manageable pack sizes. Players draw from 1 stock pile until empty, then use another stock pile. When the discard pile gets too big, move all except the top card away from play until the stock piles are empty and then replace them with the discard pile as per usual.