Okanagan Shuffle

Okanagan Shuffle is a word card game apparently produced for and sold in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. The picture on the back of the cards is of a wind surfer on Lake Okanagan, and the box features a cartoon of Ogopogo, the legendary creature inhabiting that lake.

The game comes with two decks, each with 51 letter cards and 2 wild cards named for Ogopogo. There are rules for five games:

1. A rummy-like game. Players are dealt 7 cards, and on your turn you may:

• Play a word of 3+ letters from the hand, 4+ if you haven't played a word yet.
• Take a letter out of any played word of 4+ letters, rearranging the remaining letters to make a word, and using the taken letter with letters in your hand to make a new word.
• Replace Ogopogo with the letter it currently stands for and use it to make a new word from your hand.
• Draw a card. You may use it to do any of the plays above. When one player uses up all cards in hand, the hand ends and each player gets one point per card in hand. After a certain number of hands, the lowest total wins.

2. A children's game reminiscent of Rack-o. Each player has 5 cards in hand, and on their turn draws from the draw or discard pile, and discards. The first player to have 5 consecutive letters in hand wins.

3. A Gin Rummy-like game with growing hand size. Deal N cards to each player, who in their turn draws and discards, and lays down their entire hand to spell a word if they can, after which everyone else gets one more turn to try to do the same. Each player who lays down a word gets one point for the hand. The number N of cards dealt (and hence the length of the target word) starts at 2, and increases one per hand until N=8. The highest point total wins.

4. Themed words. The dealer declares a theme -- e.g. animals, colors, girls' names, etc. -- and deals each player 7 cards. Players draw and discard as in game 3. The game ends when a player can lay down a word of any length that fits the theme declared by the dealer.

5. Solitaire. Draw 5 cards, and try to make and lay down a word of 3 or more letters. Draw cards as needed. You win if you can use the entire deck making legal words.