Republican

A word card game with a mild political theme. The deck has 52 letter cards, and 2 jokers which can stand for periods or apostrophes in contractions or abbreviations. (There is an elephant on the back of each card, and a donkey on the front of the jokers.) An extra deck is recommended if more than 3 play. Players are dealt 10 cards, and the top of the draw is turned over to start the discard pile. In a turn a player draw one from either pile and discards one. If they think they have a winning hand they "call a vote", and everyone lays down their hands to score. The player with the highest-scoring hand adds its points, plus a 10-point bonus, to their total. Play to 150 points for the win. One or more words can be formed from the hand when scoring, but the points favor longer words. Each word scores the "triangle number" of the number of letters it contains: 1 - 1 2 - 3 3 - 6 4 - 10 5 - 15 6 - 21 7 - 28 8 - 36 9 - 45 10 - 55 There are several possible bonuses: a player who can use all his hand to spell words may "vote his hand" (similar to going Gin), automatically winning the hand and getting a 20-point bonus. Spelling certain Reward Words: WORK, THRIFT, PROFIT, YOU, WIN earns double its point count. Spelling certain 10-letter Winning Words: REPUBLICAN, PATRIOTISM, CAPITALISM, PRODUCTION earns 150 points and wins the game outright.