From the box: "Feed the Sharks! How many words can you make? Use word families to build reading, spelling, and comprehension skills." Word Shark is an educational board game where players compete to use tiles to build or complete words. It comes with two-sided mats, offering two ways to play. Side one, the Shark Mat, has five different incomplete words, each with the first letter missing. The letter tiles with consonants are placed in a pile face down. Each player in turn chooses a tile and tries to complete one of the words on his or her mat with the letter. If a word cannot be completed, the tile is returned to the pile face down. The first player to complete all five words wins. Side two, the Ocean Mat, challenges players to make as many words as possible on their mats. Each player starts by drawing an agreed number of starting red consonant tiles and yellow vowel tiles. Players then work simultaneously to create as many words as possible on their mats. Players may continue to draw or trade tiles from the center pile to continue making words. (The rules do no specify how many tiles can be taken at a time). Players can decide whether to make words individually or in crossword fashion. The winner can be either the player who made the most words or the player who used the most tiles.