マーブル (MABR)

マーブル (MABR) is a word game from Japan. The 70 card deck has English letters on one side, and corresponding Hiragana on the other. With all the hiragana (including the dakuon and semi-voiced sounds) and the first letter of the romanised form (a for a, k for ki) written on both sides.

There are three different ways to play with the cards.

1) ガサゴソアルファベット Rustle Alphabet

Players put the cards spread out on the table, with the side with the roman alphabet facing up. Players choose a theme and have a limited amount of time to collect cards to make up words in Japanese that are associated with the theme. Players take up cards to make a word, seeing the Hiragana side.

For example, if the theme is 'summer', then players could make japanese words like すいか (watermelon), ひまわり (sunflower), ぼんおどり (bon odori), うちわ (uchiwa) and so on. But players can only see the roman letters on the table and there is only one card for each Hiragana. So if a player uses the R card for the Hiragana り (ri) in sunflower, then another player will not be able to complete 'bon odori'.

2) スリーレターズ Three Letters

The deck is shuffled and players are dealt three hand cards. Players hold their cards with the roman alphabet facing out to the other players.

In turn, players draw one card from the deck, and discard one card from their hand. A player is trying to get to a Japanese word using the Hiragana that they see. Once they have a word, they declare, and other players have 20 seconds to guess the word they've made from seeing the roman letters.

For example, if the player is showing KNK as their three cards, is their word きのこ (mushroom), or きんこ (Kinko), or こんき (Konki)?

3) もやもやメモリーズ Misty Memories

This is a team game played in 2 v 2 or 3 v 3.

Players are at a reunion, having a nice conversation. However, it's been a long time, and memories are hazy. Try to get through it with a reasonable answer!

Players use the cards they have been dealt to compose word using all the vowel sounds, AEIOU. The theme is decided by the letters on top of the deck, such as N → "The moment I wanted to cry". Then one team asks the other team to tell a story, using the roman letters to make a word key to the story. For example "Tell us about that time when you really wanted to cry. It was about... TKS!" The challenged team has to reach into their memories, and recount a story using a Japanese word formed from TKS and vowels. If they can make up a good story, they get awarded points.