Word Machine

October 22, 2009

Is your loquaciousness of Brobdingnagian proportions? Do morphemes of prodigious extensiveness accelerate your cardiovascular thingamajig? Can you type really fast? If so, why not try Word Machine, a word construction game from Pascal Le Merrer? It took first place in the recent MochiMedia word game design contest for its simple yet addictive gameplay.

For each level, you must enter three valid words or else lose a life. Initially, you will see one letter on the screen — all three words must begin with this letter. Let’s suppose that the first letter is M. Your first word could be “mom” or “matinee” or “malapropism”, anything goes so longs as it is a valid word and begins with M. After you enter the first word, another letter will appear — let’s say U. Now you must enter a word beginning with M and containing U somewhere within it. “Mug” or “mousse” or “mellifluous” all work. Finally a third letter appears: H. Your final word must start with M and contain both U and H, although the positions and order of the two latter letters do not matter. Thus you could enter “mush” or “matchup” or “mouthwash”.

After three words, the level ends and you get to do it all over again with new letters and a slightly shorter time limit. Occasionally, you will also get a fourth letter to include with word #3. This letter is optional, but if you manage to include it in your entry (along with the other three letters as usual), you will receive one of three power-ups: extra time, level reset, or even an extra life! Later in the game, use [space] to activate your extra time power-up and [shift] to use the reset power-up and give yourself a fresh set of letters. This comes in handy when you’ve been dealt XGQ or some other such nonsense. Points are awarded for time and for each letter according to its rarity, so aim for the longest words you can manage and try to throw some Zs and Qs in there if you can. As you progress, the score multiplier increases but the timer shrinks, providing a nice risk vs. reward quandary when typing out long words.

Posted in Games