Word Guess

A word-guessing game. A word of 3 to 10 letters is chosen at random from 100 and shown as blank slots, and you guess it a letter at a time, picking from the alphabet on screen. A letter that is in the word appears in every slot where it belongs. You have 30 seconds for each guess, shown as a number and a shrinking bar; let the clock run out and the guess is lost. Under ORIGINAL rules you get the word's length plus five guesses, and every guess counts. Under EASY, the default, the first letter is shown at the start, letters you find are free, and only misses count, eight allowed. Fill every slot to win; otherwise the word is shown. Either way the time taken is your score, and the title counts the words solved.

Controls: Joystick and either button; the keypad is not used. Push left or right to step through the letters, up or down to switch rows, and press a button to guess the letter in the box. On the title, push left or right to choose EASY or ORIGINAL rules.

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, December 1984: original Commodore 64 program (no author named in the issue). The same game was printed for the Commodore 64 and the VIC-20 with 8K. This is a modern homebrew adaptation, not a commercial Coleco release.