Spelling Bee

Requires Egg to build.

Let's make something like Dragon Warrior, except every encounter is a Scrabble contest.

Copied the 2023 NASPA word list and eliminated all words >7 letters; they won't be reachable. Eliminated some profanity: The B, S, and F words. C, N, and K words weren't there already. And "PIZZAZZ", the only word in the dictionary which was not actually reachable. Gives us about 57k words in a 400 kB resource.

2025-12-14: Migrate to Egg v2.

Dictionary Notes

Best plays (including length bonus and assuming minimal wildcards), full dict:

2: 11 for 'QI' or 'ZA'
3: 19 for 'ZAX'
4: 22 for 'QUIZ'
5: 28 for 'JAZZY'
6: 38 for 'MUZJIK'
7: 79 for 'MUZJIKS'

Best Disemvoweller-legal play is "RHYTHMS" for 68 points. (104 with a 3x word)

The best possible play is "JUKEBOX" against the Eyeball with a 3x word: 137 points. Interestingly, against non-Eyeball monsters, the best is "MUZJIKS" for exactly the same 137 points.

Words without vowels, even Y, full dict:

       HM  7
       MM  6
       SH  5
      BRR  5
      CWM 10
      GRR  4
      HMM 10
      MMM  6
      NTH  6
      PHT  8
      PST  5
      PWN  8
      SHH  9
      TSK  7
      ZZZ 10
     BRRR  6
     CWMS 11
     HMMM 10
     PFFT 12
     PSST  6
     PWNS  9
     SHHH  9
     TSKS  8
    CRWTH 18
    GRRRL 11
    PHPHT 20
   CRWTHS 24
   GRRRLS 17
   TSKTSK 19
  TSKTSKS 60

Exactly two appear to be real words, both of Welsh origin: cwm (a riverless valley) and crwth (a musical instrument). And then there's a bunch like "PFFT", my thoughts exactly.

The only letters that don't appear in a 2-letter word are C and V. There are 2 each of C and V, so if you have a blank and a full hand you can definitely play a 2-letter word. (and therefore if you have a blank and a full hand, you definitely have a word).

There are full hands that can not produce a word. I haven't figured out yet how to enumerate them.

Most monsters do not use the same dictionary as the player, they use a simpler "pidgin" dictionary. Only Scholar and Disemvoweller use the full dictionary.

Pidgin dictionary has 12657 words, compared to 57067 for the full. Best plays per length:

2: 11 for 'QI'
3: 16 for 'ZEK'
4: 22 for 'QUIZ'
5: 28 for 'JAZZY'
6: 37 for 'QUEAZY'

Additional (non-dictionary) notes for the player

The Endurance Gauntlet is 317 steps long. In each block of 128 steps there will be exactly 10 skeletons. So on average, you'll encounter 25 skeletons. No fewer than 20, and no more than 30 as long as you don't backtrack.

All 6 books are fictitious (as in, they aren't real books, not that they're books of fiction). "To Serve Man" I stole from the Twilight Zone, the other 5 are original.

Monsters with a charge meter (most of them), they will always fold if the meter hasn't started charging. If there's no charge meter, the monster always plays its best possible word.

Rabbit plays preemptively: If its charge meter fills up, the player automatically folds.

Scoring:

• Distribution and point values of letters are exactly as in Scrabble.
• 5-letter words get a 5-point bonus, 6-letter 10 points, and 7-letter 50 points.
• Double and triple word modifiers are applied before the length bonus.
• Eyeball: Any word containing I gets zero points. Any word containing U (but not I) gets a 10-point bonus after everything else.
• Eyeball's U bonus only applies once if the word has multiple U.
• Coyote discards points and only the length bonus counts. This applies in both directions.
• Sixclops disqualifies any word whose length is not 6. If the length is 6, it scores as usual.
• Queen: If a word would kill her but does not contain Q, its value is reduced to leave her with exactly 1 HP.
• If a word is not in the dictionary, it damages you instead of the monster, bonuses and all.
• No penalty for folding, except that the monster gets a free play.

High Scores

Should be possible to finish the main quest with only 9 battles, if you bug spray the whole way. I've adjusted the economy such that you can reliably get all the books without a single random battle, if you're careful.

Any%

• AK, native, 2024-12-04, 19:02, 2261 steps, side 0/5, battlec 14. Got lucky with 3 graverobs in the very front.
• AK, native, 2024-12-04, 21:43, 2100 steps, side 0/5, battlec 24. Bad luck graverobs.
• AK, native, 2024-12-04, 21:08, 2221 steps, side 0/5, battlec 18.

Any%, after reducing the price of bug spray and increasing the boss rewards:

• AK, native, 2024-12-04, 24:47, 2021 steps, side 0/5, battlec 17. Disaster, lost twice to both of Beehive and Scholar.

Dropping HP of both Beehive and Scholar.

• AK, native, 2024-12-05, 15:50, 1779 steps, side 0/5, battlec 10. Pretty much optimal but not uncommonly lucky.
• AK, native, 2024-12-05, 13:57, 1783 steps, side 0/5, battlec 9. Optimal. I doubt I could shave more than a few seconds off, and that would mostly be luck.
• 2025-08-15: 12:41

And just out of curiosity, how fast could it go if the player gets dealt "ZEPHYRS" every single time? ...unbeatable: You need a Q to kill the Queen! So with "EQUINES" instead... ...7:05

• 52:19: Trying to run through without buying anything, even food, or pulling any weird tricks like walking in the dark.

100%

• AK, native, 2024-12-05, 55:28, 3405 steps, battlec 77. Avoided bug spray for the most part, so it could be much faster than this. 100% at the last book.
• AK, native, 2025-02-16, 36:15, 4112 steps, battlec 96. There were some mishaps. <30 min sounds possible.
• 2025-08-15: 21:23, 3237 steps.

Releases

• v1.0.0 2024-12-12 First public release.