Zêtre brings out the creativity in everyone. The great part about Zêtre is that it can be played in many ways.

The game can easily be varied by adjusting the time limit either up or down, changing the value of the letter cards or removing them completely, and by adding additional mathematical operations or removing existing ones.

Below are a few sample variations. You are encouraged to add your own rules and create your own game variations. If you would like to share your variation with others, please submit it to us.

Beginners
Try removing the time limit until you are comfortable with the game. You may want to remove the letter cards as well. As you get better, start the timer off at 60 seconds. Young Children may want to play with only two operations: addition and subtraction.

Advanced
Try adding exponents, square roots, or factorials. Try changing the value of one of the letter cards to 16.

Long Game
The Long Game is basically the same as the Basic Game with one additional rule:
At the end of each round, after penalty cards are assessed, players pick up additional cards equal to one half the number of cards in their hand.

For instance, if a player has 3 cards left, they would pick up 2 more (3 divided by 2 is 1.5 which rounds up to 2). It has the effect of making the game last longer.

Memory Challenge
Try making the blue letter cards worth 11-15 and the red letter cards worth 16-20. It will be a challenge to get them as well as remember which values are which.

Passing Card Strategy
This variation involves passing cards between rounds. Start with the rules for the "Long Game". At the end of the first round after picking up additional cards, pass two cards to the person on your left. At the end of the second round after picking up additional cards, pass two cards to the person on your right. At the end of the third round after picking up additional cards, don't pass any cards.

Repeat these steps every 3 rounds - i.e. first pass left, then pass right, then don't pass, followed by pass left, pass right, don't pass, etc - until someone wins.

This makes for quite a challenging strategic game.