"Chain Gang" -- a little play-testing, March Madness style?

[Highest Prime]

Believe it or not, the idea for this word game popped more or less fully formed into my head last week while I was sitting around watching a hockey game.

I'd be interested in having 8 people play-test it, in head-to-head format with the winners advancing in each round ... apropos, I think, what with March Madness starting next week and all. I can't decide whether this is a Boggle-style game which will require a timer to be truly effective, or not.

Here's the idea. The scoring might need a bit of work.

"CHAIN GANG" -- a game for 2 players, plus Moderator

The objective is to obtain the highest combined score from two repeating strings, or "chains", of 10 letters, using specific rules. The game consists of two parts: Chain-Making and Chain-Breaking.

Chain-Making

(1) Moderator (M) will assign two players (1 and 2) a series of 10 letters, consisting of 7 consonants and 3 vowels.
(2) Players 1 and 2 will organize these letters into two strings; one which they feel will score well in Chain-Breaking (labeled Chain A), and one they believe will score poorly (labeled Chain B).
(3) All strings are considered "chained"; i.e. the last letter in any string is considered adjacent to the first letter.
(4) No Chain B may contain adjacent vowels nor four adjacent consonants at any point. However, Chain A may use the letters in whichever order its creator sees fit.*
Example: Chain B may contain VCVCCCVCCC, but not VCCCVVCCCC (adjacent vowels), nor CCVCVCCVCC (four adjacent consonants at 1, 2, 9 and 10 -- remember that position 10 is adjacent to position 1).
(5) When complete, M will give each person the B string formed by their opponent. Thus, Player 1 will work to "break" chains 1A and 2B; Player 2 to break chains 2A and 1B.

Chain-Breaking

(1) Each player, for each of their strings, seeks to make as many 3-letter or more words as possible.
(2) Words may only be formed by starting on any letter of the chain, moving a set number of letters backwards or forwards, using that letter, moving the same number of letters backwards or forwards, using that letter, and so on. All letters "landed on" must be used in order.
(3) The magnitude of the move must remain constant for each word, but the direction may alternate between letters.
(4) Letters may not be repeated, but may be reused by skipping back and forth.

EXAMPLE: Using chain -GBANLHUFEW-, legal words include BAN, NAB, GALA (move=2), BANANA, GNU (move=3), and AGE (move=2, with wraparound). Illegal words include GALL (repeated letter), GLUE (move=2, but unused A), and FLAG (change in move length).

When the Moderator receives both sets of words from each player, he will score them as follows:
Legal words receive 1 point for 3 letters; 3 points for 4-5 letters; 6 points for 6-7 letters; 10 points for 8 or more letters.
The "B" chain score for each player is doubled, and added to the "A" chain score, to give a total for each player. The higher total of the two wins the round and advances to face another player.

* Note: Yes, I'm aware that adjacent vowels implies four adjacent consonants, and vice versa. However, I reserve the right to use various numbers of letters in the string later, and these rules will still apply.

Any thoughts?

H'

[i_h8_evil_stuff]

sounds fun. I'm /in for playtesting.