Charlemagne's Sword

A word game for one to six players, taking turns. Each turn the player picks DICE, and nine letter dice are rolled, or WORDS, and a long word from the computer's vocabulary is dealt. Make as many words as you can from those letters before the time bar runs out, each letter used once per word; a Q without a U turns another die into a U. Then the other players may challenge any word, and the players decide together whether the challenge is right; a word that loses is struck. Longer words score far more: from 1 point for one letter up to 61 for twelve. The scores are shown after every turn, and after the chosen number of rounds the winner is named. A single player keeps a best total.

Controls: Use either controller, passed round. On the dice, push left or right to pick a die and down to reach the DEL, ENTER and DONE line; the left button takes a letter or does the command and the right button deletes the last letter. In menus, use the stick and a button. On the title, up and down choose, left and right change the players or rounds, and a button starts.

ColecoVision version credited in the source to Claude (an AI made by Anthropic) for Amy Studio, in Amy, the language by Amy Bienvenu, 2026: a reimagined adaptation of the published rules. From COMPUTE!'s Gazette, May 1985: original Commodore 64 program (no author named in the issue). Printed for the Commodore 64 and the VIC-20 with 8K expansion; this follows the 64 listing. The program's full title is "Charlemagne's Sword ... or Word Search". This is a modern homebrew adaptation, not a commercial Coleco release.