Keenograms (1931)

Keenograms combines the word-spelling of anagrams with the gameplay of keno/bingo. Each player gets a 5x5 card with 25 letters of the alphabet on it. (There are 6 cards in the Popular edition, 16 in the Deluxe edition.) Player agree on length of the word allowed, e.g. 3 letters, or 5 letters, etc. The dealer then shuffles the deck of 26 letter cards -- one for each letter -- and turns them over one at a time, giving players time to place a marker on that letter on their card, if they have it. Once a player can spell a word of the required length with the letters they have on marked on their card, they call out and win the round. A "mystery word" version has each player write a word of the agreed-on length on a slip of paper and place it under their card. When they can spell their word with the letters called out, they win. Other modes are similar to traditional bingo: cover a row of 5, or all 4 corners, or the periphery, or the center, or an aggreed-on alphabet shape.