Key Words

In Brief

A Word Puzzle previously given away January 24, 2009! where it received a positive 40% from 603 votes and 141 comments which you can see HERE, it was also given away January 2008 where it received a better 61% positive rating from 380 votes with 77 comments HERE and March 10th 2007 (three months after the giveaway project first started) where it received its highest positive vote of 85% votes from 279 votes with 97 comments HERE

While taking screen captures of the game for this review, I received two unexpected errors that closed the game down completely. The first time it happened I had to re create my profile as it had disappeared? There were also other issues reported when this was given away previously. You can see a slide show of in game images that I took over 10 years ago HERE

Introduction:

Get ready for some fun as a smart and cute chameleon guides you through a wonderful adventure! Letters and words fill this extremely interesting world of jungle adventures. Choose letters to build words in order to complete your journey. Just keep an eye on the time, you don't have all day to beat Key Words!

Game Features:

• Word game mechanics
• More than 100 levels
• Talking Chameleon
• More than 80000 words in dictionary

Reference's accessed HERE 15th March 2020

The Game:

Today’s game is not only fun, it's a great way to ‘supplement’ (though not replace) that ‘boring’ English teaching with the kids. Okay English can be really interesting if you like that sort of thing - I actually used to be into English via word roots and collecting unusual dictionaries (e.g. Bernstein’s reverse dictionary, and still do collect the odd dictionary when I come across them in charity shops and even purchased an English course via the national press so that I could write excellent after dinner speeches and converse with states-persons or so the advert led me to believe, lol). The game is certainly a fun way of spending a few minutes playing with words. I never could afford the complete oxford dictionary until it was put onto a DVD. Isn’t technology brilliant?

Today’s game is well worth the download, especially if you enjoy word puzzles of any type. The options menu enables you to adjust the usual stuff like the music (which is okay, though I would recommend turning it right down low if you are going to play for a while) and sound effects. The music can be changed if you have an audio converter which changes MP3 or WAV files to ogg.

You can also select to play in windowed mode, which is especially useful if you’re grabbing a quick game while at work and your boss walks into the room; (not that I’m condoning such practices). There’s a custom cursor that changes your usual mouse pointer to a gauntlet if you want to change the boring standard pointer and use one that looks the part. :lol: There’s also a 3D Hardware acceleration toggle. With this option, three-dimensional rendering uses the graphics processor on your video card instead of taking up valuable CPU resources drawing 3D images; so if you have a fairly slow processor leave this ticked (I think it was on by default when I first installed the game), as it will help reduce choppiness during game play, especially when there’s a lot of movement on the screen.

During game play there are lots of awards to aim for, which is always a great addition to a game as it gives you an incentive to carry on. There are awards for submitting a specific number of different sizes of words for example you get an award for submitting 100 words using 3 letters. There are actually three awards for each size of word from 3 to 8 letters in length, which includes 100, 200 and 300 times, making a total of 18 awards for that particular category. . There’s awards for being 1st, 2nd and 3rd on the high score board, and awards for attaining scores of 10000, 20000, and 30000, I scored 606 points on my first go (though this could probably have been more as I was concentrating on taking screen captures as opposed to actually making words {making an excuse for such a low score, lol} There’s also awards for playing a specific number of levels, the lowest being 10 levels. There are anther 39 awards to find out about. Awards that you do manage to win are shown on the playing screen above the word selection window as well as in a trophy room.

Your progress is automatically saved when you exit the game, and when you return you can start where you left off or play an earlier level. Also progress is marked on a levels map.

While playing any particular level, if you decide you want to start again you can do so by pausing the game and using the Esc key. This will bring up a menu which includes options, restart exit or resume the game. If you choose to restart the game you will automatically lose a life, though if you choose to exit then restart again via the levels selection map you do not.

By choosing words other than the ones suggested in the players info panel to the bottom right of the playing area you can earn awards, but choosing the words suggested gains you extra bonus points. For example creating 100 unique words, that is words that are not being suggested, will give you the first level of the award. Using the special bricks with a ‘* mark' allows you to make words that have letters missing from them. For example, K*TE automatically changes the * to a I making KITE. When first starting the game you are presented with an information screen (see the screen captures via the links below for details) which shows you everything you need to know about this game. You can also select (toggled on by default) an in game tutorial, which will take you through the basics of the game. Later on when bonus items such as ruby and diamond gems are presented you will get little balloons popping up via the lizard helper with further information about the bonus. The lizard also acts as a warning if you are taking too long over thinking about a word combination; the levels are timed. It also comes out with some funny stuff as well, which will endear the kids to the game, (possibly). Once a letter has been selected for a word it cannot be used again unless you decide to scrap the word in which case you can use the clear button which is situated to the left of the word creation field, or alternatively you can remove individual letters by right clicking on the ones you want deselecting. To submit a word you can ether click on the green submit hand (note to the developer - maybe it’s the wrong colour with respect to red/green colour blindness) or double click anywhere on the word you’ve made.

Try clicking on the lizard. He will cycle through most of the phrases you are likely to see during the game. At the end of a level you are presented with skills table. There are four to choose from, Freeze Tim, New Row, Diamond, Ruby. As you progress through the levels these skills increase in value, so for example, if you choose to improve the freeze time, every time you choose a letter tile with the freeze symbol on it the time it freezes the tile selection lasts longer

Don't forget to check out the Epic game freebies; this week there are three games up for grabs, i.e. Anodyne 2: Return to Dust, A Short Hike and Mutazione. Next week there will be two games, The Stanley Parable and the excellent Watch Dogs. You can find details of all this weeks and next weeks games via the Epic Games main page HERE. Also if you missed yesterdays giveaway (thanks for reminding me to post details , there's an even better (free standing) version for free via the Indie Gala free section HERE that includes all four of the Doodle God chapters as well as load sof other free games.