The Word Game is a tradition in our family. I don't know if ever had a real name, or how we came to learn it. My mother taught it to me, and we have played thousands of rounds over the years. My mother is a stickler for the traditional rules; I used to have great bouts with modified rules playing with Bob Dutton.

The rules are much like Master Mind except with words.

Traditionally played with two players each player selects a secret word. This word must be 5 letters long, not have two or more of the same letter in it, and can't be a proper noun,

Thus: INEPT is valid word. MYTH, ALLOT, or GARTH are not.

Each player then offers a word with the same restrictions and the other player says how many letters of his word are in the challenge word.

Play goes on like this back and forth, until both players have guessed the opponents word. The player that did it in the least number of words won.

A recent game looked like this: