The objective of Piggy Bankers is to make as many words as possible with the given letters. To begin playing, select a game level—Easy, Medium, or Hard—and complete that number of words to move on to the next round. By clicking on either a pig or its coin, a letter will drop down into the lockbox to form a word. When letters form a valid word, the Play Word button will turn green. Players can use the Undo Letter and Erase Word buttons to edit or delete a word, while the Shuffle button scrambles the letters.
The number of words required to move on to the next round is noted on the left side of the lockbox and counts down with each new word. Once the word requirement is met, the player is awarded a 1,000-point bonus and the number turns into a star, indicating a player can move on to the next level at any time by hitting the Next Word button. When the player cannot meet the word requirement to advance, he can hit the Finish Game button. A player is awarded 10 points/letter in each word; for example, if the player forms the word “red,” he is awarded 30 points.
The Hog Wild button creates a coin that can be used as any letter to make a word. For example, the 7 given letters are T H F I R S T; the player could make the word “thirsty” by using all the available letters and then hitting the Hog Wild button for a coin to use as the Y.
The Hint button fills in one letter of each unknown word, while the Free Word button provides one word to use toward the word requirement. An additional hint is awarded when a player begins a new round. If a Red Coin appears and the player can form a word with it, a Hog Wild, Hint or Free Word is granted.
In this mode, each team tries to accumulate more points than the other team by creating longer words, which are worth more points. The flashing green score box indicates whose turn it is to spell the next word. Teams begin with 1 hint and 3 free words each. The Hog wild, Hint, and Free Word features work the same as in single-player mode. A team may hit the Skip Turn button if it cannot create a word, and the optional Set Timer button gives each team 1 minute to make a word, for an extra challenge. If time elapses and a team can’t form a word, the timer automatically begins again, and it is the next team’s turn. Play continues until teams can no longer meet the minimum word requirement. The team with the highest score wins.