I'm very glad you've chosen to learn a bit more about Lexio. Lexio is, at its heart, a card game played with thick, chubby, clacktastic domino-like tiles. There exist four suits (Blue/Cloud, Yellow/Star, Green/Moon, and Red/Sun) and each suit contains up to 15 tiles numbered 1 through 15. Different numbers of tiles are used in the game depending on the number of players:

This electronic implementation supports one human player and two to four additional computer opponents. Although this form of the game can serve in a pinch when you want to play a round or two at work, before bed, or when nobody is looking I urge you to locate a copy of the real game for yourself to enjoy with your friends. The game is somewhat hard to find as it's produced only in Korea. Nothing beats the sound of those clacking tiles on the table during the shuffle so going that extra mile to locate a copy is well worth the time and effort.

Lexio plays relatively simply. Those with poker backgrounds or a history of trick taking games will learn quickly. The steps of the game are as follows:

  1. Deal all tiles to the players who keep them hidden from other players
  2. The player with the Blue-3 (Cloud-3) begins the first hand of the round and leads with a meld of tiles. The Blue-3 is not required to be played in the opening meld.
  3. Play continues clockwise where each player decides to trump the meld with a stronger meld or pass. There are no restrictions on how many times around the table you go.
  4. The hand ends any time a player is faced with trumping or passing his own meld of tiles. In other words, if all other players pass. If you pass, and it makes it back around to you, you are allowed to play. Passing is not permanent in the hand.
  5. The player who won the hand, sets all tiles from the hand aside in a common area and leads another meld of tiles to start the next hand.
  6. The round ends immediately when any player players their last tile.
  7. Players pay each other sums of money based on the number of tiles left in their hands, the tiles are shuffled, and a new round begins.
  8. Play continues for a fixed number of rounds or until someone runs out of money.

On your turn you must play a meld or pass but the goal is to be the first to get rid of your tiles so passing can be dangerous. Obtaining and retaining the lead is crucial. The key rule to trumping a meld on the table is that the number of tiles in the meld stays constant throughout the entire hand. No player can play a meld containing more tiles than the meld on the table. If the lead meld contains two tiles, then all melds in the hand that trump it must contain two and only two tiles. So what's a valid meld of tiles?

Strength of a meld is determined by examining the two melds and choosing the meld containing the highest numbered tile. If both melds contain the same highest numbered tile then the suit of that tile is used to determine strength.

Given that a trumping meld must only contain the same number of tiles as the meld on the table, a trumping meld of 5 tiles can be of a different type. e.g. every full house beats a flush and every straight flush beats four of a kind plus one.

The suits have a ranking order with Red/Sun > Green/Moon > Yellow/Star > Blue/Cloud.

In addition, the 1 tile is special in that it (much like an Ace) can wrap around the highest tile in a straight. The difference is that the 1 tile is always stronger than lesser numbered tiles regardless of where it's played. To complicate things a little more, the 2 tile is even stronger than the 1 tile although it cannot wrap around in a straight.

So the ranking of the numbers is: 2 > 1 > 15 > 14 .... > 4 > 3.

The strongest straight flush is the Red 1-5 since the straight contains both the 1 and the 2. Any other straight flush with the same numbers will be of a less powerful suit. Blue 2-5 even beats a Red 12-15,1 straight since the blue 2 is more powerful than any non-2 tile. Note that in the full house, only the tiles in the three of a kind are used to determine strenght. So a 3,3,3,2,2 would be beaten by 4,4,4,5,5 since the 4s beat the 3s. the four plus one meld works similarly with the extra tile being ignored.

So what's the payout look like at the end of the round. When a player 'goes out' play stops and all players pay all other players a sum of money equal to the difference in the number of tiles.

For example: Bill goes out so he has 0 tiles. Sally has 2 tiles left. Joe has 5 tiles left and Ben had a bad hand and has 8 tiles left. Sally owes Bill $2 since she has 2 tiles more than Bill does. Sally doesn't owe anybody else at the table because she has less tiles left than they do. Joe owes Bill $5 and Sally $3 (5-0 and 5-2). Poor Ben owes everybody: Bill $8, Sally $6, and Joe $3.

Also, don't be left holding twos in your hand! For each two you have in your hand it multiplys what you pay to each player. So if Ben above had one 2 in his hand of 8 tiles, he'd owe $16, $12, $6. The first 2 doubles your payment, the 2nd 2 triples, etc.

A more offical set of rules can be found on BGG in the Just the Facts Lexio Rules.

The electronic form of the game tries to take the work out of playing and lets you focus on deciding what to play or when to pass. The tiles are dealt automatically at the beginning of the round and the current player is highlighted with a red box around their tiles. On your turn you play or pass (you can also ask the computer to give you a hint about what to play). The computer will automatically pass for you if you do not possess tiles in sufficient strength to beat the meld on the table.

On your turn, select the tiles you wish to form your meld with by clicking on them. When clicked, they'll jump up near the top of the red box and when you've composed the meld you wish to play, click the Play button. Reclicking a previously clicked tile puts it back into your hand. The order of the tiles in your clicked selections is unimportant since the tiles uniquely identify a meld and the computer will figure out what meld you where intending to play given your selections.

I'd love to hear from feedback from you concerning bugs, problems, praise, or suggestions on play. If the bots are too easy, maybe we can work together on some enhancements. Drop me an email at matt at marquand dot net or leave a comment in the Lexio Topic at Marquand.net. I enjoyed working on the implementation and without sounding too needy, I do accept donations (upper right corner of the home page at Marquand.net) but I'll take comments and emails just the same. Thanks again and enjoy the game.