A fairly long word is written on the board (or paper), such as "dictionary", "South American", or "surprising". Players in teams or individually try to make as many new words as possible using only the letters in the given word. Letters cannot be used more time than they appear, for example, "dictionary" has two i's so any new words can contain one or two i's but not three.

The winner can be judged based on the number of correct words and bonus points given for unique words.
For higher level players, points can be based mathematically on two to the power of the number of letters, or 2^letters. So, if the new word from "dictionary" is:
it = 2^2 = 4 points
tan = 2^3 = 8 points
torn = 2^4 = 16 points
dirty = 2^5 = 32 points
dainty = 2^6 = 64 points
acidity = 2^7 = 128 points
diatonic = 2^8 = 256 points