Word-a-Melon Board Game: Rules and Instructions for How to Play

Objective of Word-a-Melon

The objective of Word-a-Melon is to collect more seeds than the other players by creating words.

Setup

Assemble the gameboard by connecting the pieces with their matching letter.
Pick four random seeds that won’t be used in the game. Set these seeds aside.
- If you want an easier game remove the J, Q, X, and Z seeds.
- If you want a harder game remove a A, E, S, and T seed.
Mix up the rest of the seeds and randomly place one face down on each space of the gameboard.
The youngest player starts the game.

Playing Word-a-Melon

You will begin your turn by rolling the die. The number you roll determines how many seeds you can flip over.

Die Roll — The current player rolled a four on the die. They will get to flip over four of the letters on the board.

You can choose which of the seeds you want to flip over. The seeds do not need to be next to one another.

Creating A Word

Once you have flipped over the seeds, you will try to form a word with the revealed letters. You will try to form as long of word as you can. You do not need to use all of the revealed letters. Once you have come up with a word, announce the word that you have chosen. You can only form one word on your turn.

Take all of the seeds used in the word that you came up with. It is preferential to create longer words since it allows you to take more seeds.

Forming A Word in Word-A-Melon — After revealing four letters this player has to come up with a word using the revealed letters. They have decided to create the word rate. They will take the four letters from the board and add them to their collection of seeds.

Any seeds that you were unable to use, you will flip so the letter is no longer visible. To help yourself in future rounds, try to remember where revealed letters are on the board.

Forming A Word Without Using All of the Letters in Word-A-Melon — In this round the player flipped over five letters. They came up with the word pens. They will take the four letters that make up the word they chose.

Remaining Face Up Letter — After the player took the letters that make up pens, the U remains face up on the board. The letter will be flipped over to the seed side.

The next player in turn order will then take their turn. The game does not specify whether turn order moves clockwise or counterclockwise.

Winning Word-a-Melon

Word-a-Melon ends when all of the players agree that no more words can be formed with the letters still remaining on the board.

End of Game — These are the four remaining letters on the game board. Since none of the players can come up with a word that uses these letters, the game ends.

Each player counts up how many seeds they were able to collect during the game. The player that collects the most seeds wins the game.

Winning Word-A-Melon — At the end of the game these were the words that each player formed. The players collected the following number of seeds: 11, 13, 15, 13. The third player collected the most seeds so they won the game.

If there is a tie, you can choose to either share the victory or you can play another game to break the tie.

Variant Games

Letter-Up

In this variant game, you will mostly follow the same rules as the main game. The one change is that the letters that players are unable to use stay face up for the rest of the game.

On your turn you can form words with the letters you reveal from your die roll as well as tiles that were already face up.

Word-A-Yellin’

In this variant the players will take turns rolling the die and choosing which seeds to turn over.

After the letters have been revealed, all of the players will try to form a word with the face up letters. You can choose to submit your word for the round before all of the letters are revealed.

All of the players can submit an answer. The player that submits the longest word wins and takes all of the corresponding seeds. If there is a tie, the tied player that submitted their answer first gets to take the corresponding seeds.

Letter Distribution

A – 5
B – 2
C – 2
D – 2
E – 7
F – 1
G – 2
H – 1
I – 5
J – 1
K – 1
L – 2
M – 2
N – 3
O – 6
P – 2
Q – 1
R – 3
S – 3
T – 3
U – 2
V – 1
W – 1
X – 1
Y – 1
Z – 1

Year: 2017 | Publisher: Bananagrams Inc | Designer: Garret J. Donner, Michael S. Steer | Artist: Kendra Harrington

Genres: Family, Memory, Word

Ages: 6+ | Number of Players: 2-4 | Length of Game: 10-20 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate

Components: playing board (4 pieces), 60 seeds, die, instructions

Where to Purchase: Amazon, eBay Any purchases made through these links (including other products) help keep Geeky Hobbies running. Thank you for your support.

For more board and card game how to plays/rules and reviews, check out our complete alphabetical list of board game posts.