How to Play

OBJECTIVE
Kiitos is a word game for 2 to 4 players where you help finish your opponents’ words. If your opponent finishes your word say “Kiitos” to them. Kiitos is the Finnish word for thankyou.

A round takes approximately 15-20 minutes. For a quick game play a game of a single round. The full game is 3 rounds.

COMPONENTS
72 letter cards, 3 rule cards, 8 challenge cards, Lock Token, 4 seasoning cards.
You’ll need a pen and paper for scoring if you play more than one round.

Serious players will also need access to a dictionary, a word checking app on their phone, or another agreed reference. It is recommended to allow both British and American spellings, rather than one or the other.

GAME MODES
There are multiple ways to play the game. The rule cards set the rules for the game. The full game is played over 3 rounds and the rules change dynamically by flipping the rule cards.

It is best to learn how to play by playing a simple round or two of Kiitos, then some rounds of Super-Kiitos, before playing the full game. The lock token is only used in the full game. Seasoning cards are not part of the full game. They are for variant play.

SETUP FOR A SIMPLE GAME OF KIITOS
Decide the number of rounds to play. Shuffle the letter cards and place them as a draw pile in the play area. To the side of the letter deck layout a deck of the challenge cards and the three rule cards set on these, their green, sides:

CUT FOR FIRST PLAYER
For the first round cut the letter deck for first player. The closest to Z goes first. In subsequent rounds the player with the lowest score chooses who goes first. If tied for last cut the letter deck again.

TO PLAY
Deal 8 cards to each player. Throughout the game try to keep your cards secret from your opponents. The leftover letter cards become the face down draw deck.

SCORING PILES
Each player will be making two scoring piles as they play each round. A face up pile is the positive pile that counts positive points to your score. This is the pile for successfully completed words. A face down pile is the negative pile that counts against your score. This is the pile for words that you can’t continue and have to pick up.

STARTING A WORD
The first player says a word, spelling it aloud if need be, and plays the first letter of the word face up in the centre of the table. This becomes the target word. e.g. they say “CATS” and play a C down. The minimum length of a word is on the rule card and is 4 or 5 letters. There is no upper limit to the length of the word you choose. It must be a valid word*. A valid word must be English words according to the standard word game tropes, i.e. no proper nouns, no hyphenated words, no words with apostrophes, no abbreviations, no acronyms. Plurals are OK. You can say words that can’t be spelt with the cards in the deck. There is no Q card, but you can say words with a Q in them. There’s only 2 Bs, but you could say “BUBBLES”. You do not need anything but the first letter in the word. In fact choosing words where you do have all the letters means there’s less chance your opponents will have the next letter. In a 2 player game it might be an idea to have the 1st,3rd,5th and 7th letters of a word, but giving your opponents an idea of the letters in your hand can be a bad idea. Learn to bluff and say one word to draw out the letter you want them to play and then change the target word if it comes back to you. In a 3 player game you might want to have the 1st, 4th and 7th letters. In a 4 player game you might want to have the 1st and 5th letters of a word.

*For seasoned players if you can get away with a word unchallenged, that is valid enough. i.e. you can make up words, or use words that you know aren’t in your chosen reference, you just have to get it past your opponent. Cheating is only cheating in Kiitos if you don’t play the next letter in a word that you are compelled to play.

CHALLENGES
If a word is challenged, the challenging player takes a challenge card when the target word is announced. (In a 3 or 4 player game then the first to grab a challenge card from the deck becomes the challenger.) Challenge to a standard agreed dictionary or dictionary website. Whoever loses the challenge has to put the challenge card into their negative, face down pile. If the challenged word is legitimate then play continues, but if the challenge failed and it isn’t a word the player takes up their letter, plays another letter, or the same letter, and thinks of a different word to say. This word can be freshly challenged.

CONTINUING THE WORD
The next player is compelled to play the next letter in the stated word to the right of the other letters already on the table. i.e. the second player would be compelled to play the A after the C if the stated word was “CATS”. If the letter played completes the target word then the player who originally said that word says “Kiitos” out loud, takes the cards from the centre of the table and adds it to their face up, positive pile in front of them. i.e. the letters get picked up by who said the target word.

IF YOU DON’T HAVE THE NEXT LETTER
If the next player does not have the next letter in the word then they may play a different letter that could extend the letters on the table, and state a new target word. This word must also be valid and it can also be challenged. So in the above example if the word was CATS, the letters so far on the centre of the table was C, and the next player didn’t have an A, they could play an O and say COGS, or an L and say CLASP, etc. This newly stated word overrides the previous target word. The new word must not be completed as soon as the player that says it plays their card. There must be at least one more letter for the subsequent players to play. So if the word was CLOG, CLO was on the table and the player had no G, but did have a T, they couldn’t say CLOT. However they could play the T and say CLOTHES. The new word also has to be four (or five) letters or longer. If, however, the player could not extend the letters on the table, because they didn’t have the next letter in the target word, and they didn’t have a letter that could extend the current letters on the table for a new word, then they have to take the letters from the table and place them in their face down, negative pile in front of them. i.e. the letters get picked up by the player whose turn it is.

WHO PLAYS NEXT
If a player played a letter, but didn’t finish the word the next player clockwise goes next.
If the cards on the table were picked up (either because they stated the target word that got completed, or they couldn’t extend the letters and had to pick them up), then whoever picked the letters up will be leading a new word, but first all players draw their hand back to 8.
Players can draw back to 8 cards in any player order. Help yourself from the deck when you need to.

SPECIAL 4 PLAYER ONLY RULE
In a 4 player game if a player has just picked up an unfinished word to their face down negative pile of exactly 4 letters, which means they originally played the first letter of that word, after everyone has drawn back to 8 cards, they may take the top card of the letter deck and place it in their face down negative pile (doing so without looking at it) and the player to their immediate right has to lead the new word instead of themselves and hence they will play the second letter of the new word. If the letter deck is empty this special play is not possible.

END OF THE ROUND
If any player couldn’t draw their hand back up to 8 because the draw deck has run out, then the round is immediately over. Throw the cards left in your hand into the centre of the table.
Scoring: Calculate a player’s score at the end of each round by counting the cards in both the face up stack and face down stacks. Deduct the face down stack count from the face up stack count to get the player’s score. Scores can be, and often are, negative. Remember to double the positive card count if the alternate rule card, Positive Pile x2, is face up. Cards in hand at the end of a round are discarded and do not contribute to a player’s score.

THE WINNER
The winner is the player with the highest total score over the agreed number of rounds. Ties are ties, or play another round as a tiebreaker.

THE ALTERNATE RULES
To change the game, flip one or more of the rules card to their alternate side, in any combination.

• 5 Letters Minimum Length Words – Now the minimum length of any target word must be 5 letters or more.

• Positive Pile x 2 – At the end of each round when determining scores, each card in your face up, positive pile is now worth two points each.

• Super-Kiitos – Add letters to either end of the word.

SUPER-KIITOS RULES
When leading a letter and saying a target word, the letter played can be anywhere in the word. It doesn’t have to be the first letter as in Kiitos.

The following player is compelled to play any letter that comes before or after the letters already played. If they have more than one letter, or a letter that can be played in more than one position then they can choose what to play. If the letter or letters already played can be in more than one position within the target word then any possible adjoining letter compels the following player to play it. i.e. if the target word was BUBBLES and a B had been played then the following player would be compelled to play a U, either after the first B or before the second B, or a B either before or after the B on the table, or an L to make BU, UB, BB or BL.

If the player can’t extend the target word then they may change the target word with a letter in their hand. The new letter can be played before or after the existing letters, and the new string of letters can be in any position within the target word.

THE FULL GAME
Setup as per normal with the rule cards on their green sides, and put the lock token near the rule cards. The only rule change is that when a player has a word successfully completed and it is being put on their face up, positive pile then they MUST also flip one of the rule cards without the lock token and move the lock token onto it. (Hence the same rule card can’t be flipped twice in a row). Of course follow the rules on the currently flipped up side of the rule cards. Between rounds the state of the rule cards is preserved. i.e. they don’t flip back to their starting sides.