Each game starts out with a list of words containing at least four letters and at most eight letters like this:

amAssing
seCluded
teRrific
blOwfish
vaScular
waTerway
raInfall
huCkster

Vertical words used:
acrostic

1. Each word must have the same number of letters.
2. The number of words must match the number of letters in each word.
3. The list of words must spell out a word vertically, up or down, using the letters in the same position of each word.
4. Words used must be actual (common) words.
5. Highlight the vertical word using caps or use the courier font for the word matrix.
6. Add the new vertical word to the list of used vertical words.
7. The first game starts with four four letter words and subsequent games increase by one letter/word.
8. After eight eight letter words, the next game resets to four.

To play:

1. Swap the order of the existing words to spell at least one word vertically up or down using the letters in the same position of each word where the vertical word, regardless of direction, has not been used previously for the list of words. Add the new vertical word to the list of vertical words used.

2. While reordering the existing words, substitute another word with the same number of letters for one currently in the list that spells at least one word vertically up or down using the letters in the same position of each word. Add the new vertical word to the list of vertical words used.

3 If the swapping or substitution results in more than one word vertically up or down, the game ends and the player gets to start the next game.

4. If more than twenty four hours has passed since the last play, the next player has the choice between playing the
existing game or starting the next game.

Notes:
Use an anagram generator such as http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/ to look for words using the letters in a specific column.

One source for finding words matching a specified pattern is http://www.onelook.com

To set the word matrix to courier font, while creating your post, select the word matrix highlighting it as if to copy, click on the down arrow in the FONT box and select courier.