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7.6 excellent
If your Perquackey set explodes in a giant fireball, you might be interested in Flip Words 2, a find and spell game from Hipsoft.
At the top of the game screen is a secret phrase. It could be a person's name, the name of a thing, a movie title, something from that Philadelphia guy's almanac, etc. The most important thing is that the phrase is a secret. The letters are represented by round gray tokens, so you know how many letters are in each word, and how many words are in the phrase, but that's about it. Your goal is to guess the phrase. But this game doesn't involve wheel spinning or bankruptcy.
Below the phrase is a grid of random letter tokens, laid out in seven rows and columns. Horizontal bars skewer each row, as they might a soccer team. This enables the tokens to spin... or some might say, flip. Gameplay involves making words using the letter tokens. To spell a word, you click on each letter in it one by one. The number one rule in these types of games also applies to Flip Words 2: each succeeding letter of the word you spell must be next to the letter that came before it. They can touch horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, but they must touch. You can't cheat no matter how hard you try, and as a cheater I tried for a good ten minutes.
If the word you spell is an actual word from a reputable dictionary, you'll get points and the first letter (and only the first letter) of your word will be revealed wherever and how many times it appears in the secret phrase above. For example, if you spell the word "menu," any m's in the secret phrase will be disclosed. The letters you used to spell the word flip around on the bar, revealing new letters. You have twenty turns in which to solve the phrase. (You can make a guess at any time, but if you're wrong you lose a turn.) The longer and more impressive the word you manage to spell, the more points you get. I can read plenty of words, but I'm not so good at finding words in a jumble of letters. I usually spell words like "cat" and "nod" and "tip," etc. Some of the brainiacs who play Flip Words 2 online are experts and spell words like "chandler" and "foxhound" and "plantain."
What gives? I spelled the word "lich" and the game rejected it. Everyone knows that a lich is a horrifying undead skeleton wizard that hides in the corners of churchyards at night.
Some letter tokens are worth bonus points. They're labeled with "double" and "triple." Use them anywhere in a word and your points will be doubled or tripled. Vowels that are labeled "free" will reveal every occurence of that vowel in the secret phrase, even if you don't use that vowel as the first letter in a word. If you're completely stumped, you can shuffle the entire grid (i.e. flip every letter around) and receive a new random set of letters to work with.
As the rounds increase, you'll start out with less turns to work with. After a while things get really tough and you don't receive enough turns to complete the phrase! But it's not hopeless. Luckily you have a free turn meter which fills up with green magic word energy every time you successfully spell a word. The longer and more obscure the word, the more magic is added to the meter. When it fills to overflowing you'll receive a brand new free turn.
The game offers another mode of play which I found much more challenging and fun. It's called "strategy" mode. You have to be a sneaky, plan ahead type of person to excel in this mode. Instead of turns, you start with twenty gold tokens. (They're not real gold - just pictures on your computer screen.) Every action in the game costs at least one token, and some more than one. For example, spelling a word costs a token. Buying a vowel costs two tokens. Shuffling the letters costs one token. Getting a phrase hint costs four tokens. And so on. Sometimes a free token will be attached to a letter in the grid. If you can spell a word using that letter, you'll get its token. If you complete the phrase, you'll get bonus tokens based on the quality of the words you spelled. Then you move on to a new phrase in the next round. How far can you get with just twenty tokens?
Flip Words 2 has an online score system, and also lets you download new phrases from the internet. So you should never run out of new phrases to solve. You can also make your own ultra obscure 1960s foreign movie phrases and upload them to Hipsoft's site. If they're approved, others will be able to download them. Your name will even be shown, so players all over the world will know who to curse. There is a sizable and friendly online Flip Words brainiac community just waiting for you to join them so they can outspell you with their lightning-quick word-making abilities. It's literally a party.
There's no story in Flip Words 2 and the presentation is fairly basic - the game is just pure hardcore word fun for pure hardcore word finders and spellers. If you like you can create your own story of adventure, intrique, and double-crosses by interacting with the players of the game's online community. If you like stretching your brain muscles, you'll like Flip Words 2.
I'll leave you with a quote from my junior high school science teacher: "Whoever said there's no such thing as a stupid question has obviously never taught junior high school science."