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Runes box art
1981 Ranked #14,172

Runes

A competitive word construction game has players place letter segments on opponents’ boards and deduce their hidden words. Correct segment placements and bold guesses earn points, while a wrong word guess loses them.

Deduction Word Game

Players

2-4

Play time

Not listed

Age

10+

Complexity

1.9/5

Rating

6.15

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.4/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 4.1/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.7/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.1/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.7/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

Runes is a different kind of word game where players actually construct the letters with special game pieces. Players attempt to figure out not simply the spelling but the actual letter structure of the hidden words.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

Runes is a different kind of word game where players actually construct the letters with special game pieces. Players attempt to figure out not simply the spelling but the actual letter structure of the hidden words. Players take turns putting one letter segment in a letter box on another player's board; they get a point if the segment belongs to that letter and the other player gets a point if it doesn't. When a player thinks they know an opponent's word they guess it and gain points equal to the number of segments in the word (or lose the points if they are incorrect).

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Category

2

Mechanism

1

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
No editions imported yet.

Player resources

Rulebooks, player aids, FAQs, and solo resources.

No files imported yet.

Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
2–4
Best with
2–4
Play time
30 min
Age
10+
Complexity
1.9/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

3
Bill Eberle Jack Kittredge Peter Olotka

Artists

2
Linda Bound Franz-Josef Schulte

Publishers

1
Eon