SunBun GAme

Rating: Blilyant!

I honestly don’t expect much from most free online Flash games. The nature of the beast is that they are programmed quickly and it’s hard to deliver much innovation when you’ve got about a week to build a game. But Word Spinkle is one of those rare games that does something truly remarkable; it confounds all logic and in so doing provides one of the most challenging and (yes) frustrating game experiences I’ve ever encountered, and yet there is something almost surreally pleasing about playing it. The premise is quite simple: letters fall from the top of a shaft in a gentle Tetris-like rain while the player quickly rotates and positions the letters so that they will spell words when they land on the stack below. Sounds easy and rather clever. But Word Spinkle is unintentionally devious, because it’s creator apparently decided to omit any sort of spell-check and went with an algorithm that recognizes and rewards long strings of syllables rather than actual words. (The game’s name should have clued me in.) The fascinating result is that you’ll get a miserly five points if you spell “cow” while spelling out “fidelmopinpop” will earn you 1,500 points and a double bonus on your next word. If that word is “right” you can kiss your bonus goodbye; better to go with “amalotridingus” for which you’ll reap 10,000 points. Things really

Inspired lunacy from SunBun GAme

 get interesting when you choose one of the theme modes, which are based on categories of words, such as place names, animal names, or food. SunBun GAme (don’t ask about the A) is located in Taiwan, so it’s natural enough that some of the foods commonly found there might be different than those I’m familiar with, but a thorough Google search failed to return a single hit on “flybipples”, “crudneyplozits” or “samichoglevorpers” leading me to believe that SunBun didn’t really try very hard for accuracy. As for the surreal, after playing Word Spinkle for about half an hour I found myself grinning from ear-to-ear every time I cleverly built a new, absurd-sounding word. It turns out to be an accidental treat, although I would urge caution if you are practicing for a spelling bee or about to write an article. As you can see from the following example of an excerpt from my first draft of this review, playing Word Spinkle seriously messes with your head:

Ibeawong honestorinarily donotumpect muchalmostiplex fromalhaut mossfreelipon lineeflash gamesutra. Thenaturotum bestisatayare programmedlyanlhardto delverovationyo gotaboutweek tobyagam.

I suggest allowing at least half an hour between playing Word Spinkle and attempting to write anything more challenging than a prescription. –Vasco De Bean