Ponkotsu Factory

Broken words are brought to the factory every day; can you combine letters and fix them?

This is a word game in which the master secretly creates three words of three letters, then scrambles the letters face down and passes them to the other players. All players race to combine these letters to create the three words, and once someone does, they start a one-minute countdown timer. The first player to create three words scores 3 points, while anyone else who does so with the time limit scores 1 point. For each word that matches the master's word, a player scores 1 point.

In 2017, a new English/Japanese edition of this game was produced with the new name Ponkotsu Factory. "Ponkotsu" means something like silly or clumsy. This edition was co-produced with itten, with new artwork by Yoshiaki Tomioka. In this edition of the game, changes were made to allow for the differences between English and Japanese writing. When playing in English, the master constructs three four-letter words using twelve letter tiles, then mixes them thoroughly. The change to longer words should approximate the challenge of playing in Japanese with only three characters.