Score fives. First to the target wins.
You score points whenever the open ends of the board add up to a multiple of five. Everything else — where tiles go, whose turn it is — exists to set up those moments. A game runs to 150 (quick) or 250 (standard); the first player past it takes the match.
The set, the hand, the boneyard.
Bones uses a double‑six set: 28 tiles, every pairing from blank–blank up to six–six. Each player draws seven to start. The rest stay face‑down in the boneyard, waiting to be drawn when you're stuck.
A turn: match a number to an open end.
On your turn you play one tile whose pips match a number showing at one of the board's open ends — a five joins a five, a blank joins a blank. Can't go? Draw from the boneyard until you can. If it's empty and you still can't play, you pass and the turn moves on.
The spinner opens four ends.
The first double played is the spinner. It's laid crossways, and once both of its long sides have been built out, the board can grow — and be scored — on all four of its ends instead of two.
Add the open ends. A multiple of five is yours.
After you place a tile, add up every open end on the board. If the total is a multiple of five, you score exactly that many points. Say the ends show a 6 and a 4 — that's 10, and you score 10. A 6 and a 3 total 9, so that turn scores nothing. Bones shows the running total while you choose, so you learn to see the fives instead of counting for them.
A double counts as both ends.
When a double sits at an open end, its whole value counts, not half of it. A double‑four at an open end adds 8 to the total, not 4. Worth remembering when you're one pip short of a five.
Going out is called dominoing.
Play your last tile and you've dominoed — the hand ends. On top of everything you scored along the way, you collect your opponents' remaining pips, rounded to the nearest five. If nobody can move and the boneyard's empty, the hand is blocked instead, and the lightest hand takes the leftovers.
Let Bones keep score.
Spinner rules, doubles on both ends, the dominoing bonus — scored correctly every hand. Leave the running total on until you don't need it, then turn it off.
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