User Guide

Overview

Blindfold Word Games is a group of Word Games, for both sighted and visually impaired people, designed for rapid audio play.
The first game in this group is Word Ladder; Word Ladder was invented by Lewis Carroll in 1877.

Word Ladder

There are several varieties of Word Ladder included in Word Games. Details for each game is in the Games Guide.
A Word Ladder begins with a start word and and end word.
In order to win the game, the must change the start word into the end word progressively, creating an existing word at each step, and changing only one letter at a time.
The letters stay in the same order – they are not moved around at all.

Word Ladder, 3 or 4 Letters, Any Solution – This game will randomly pick 2 words, and you have to solve this by changing one letter per word. You can come up with any solution that works; but the fewer the words, the higher the score. Hints are available.
Word Ladder, 3 or 4 Letters, using Definitions – This game will randomly pick 2 words, and you have to solve this by changing one letter per word. For each word, the game will read you the definition. You must come up with the word that matches the definition and fits into the word ladder.
Word Ladder, You Pick, Any Solution – You enter the starting and ending words, and solve it with any solution.
Word Ladder, You Pick, using Definitions – You enter the starting and ending words, and solve it using definitions.

Word Flick

Create words from a 4 by 4 or 5 x 5 grid of letters. See the Word Flick User Guide.

Unscramble

Unscramble a word. See the Unscramble User Guide.

Settings

The SETTINGS screen has several sections.

In the first section of SETTINGS, you can change how the game performs.
You can turn off the background music.
You can turn on hints.
You can turn off some sound effects.

In the second section of SETTINGS, you can visit the Blindfold Games dot org website and blog, send an email to us, or visit the AppleVis page for our apps.

Game Rules

Word Ladder

Word Ladder, DOG to CAT, Any Solution

This sample game is any easy way to learn how to use a word ladder, and learn how this game works.

To change the word ‘DOG’ to ‘CAT’, you can first change the first letter of DOG from ‘D’ to ‘C’, making the word COG.
Then change the third letter of ‘COG’, so the new word is ‘COT’.
Finally change the second letter of ‘COT’, so the new word is ‘CAT’.

There may be several ways to solve the same ladder.
For example, you could have also used DOG to TAG to TAG to TAT and then TAT to CAT.

In the game screen, there is one line for each word.
The puzzle is spoken in a woman’s voice.
The first line of the ladder is the start word, and the last line of the ladder is the ending word.
For example, if you are changing DOG to CAT, the second line of the ladder will also be DOG, and you will start on the second line.
Move the cursor to the letter you want to change, by flicking left and right.
Then tap twice, and you can pick a letter from the alphabet at the bottom of the screen.

The alphabet at the bottom of the screen is spoken in a man’s voice.
You can flick left or right on the letters, or, if you place your finger at the bottom of the screen,
and press it for a half second, you can then slide your finger quickly left and right to get to the letter you want.
Once you find the letter, select it by tapping twice.
If you don’t want to use the alphabet at the bottom of the screen, you can tap three times, and type in the full spelling for the word, then press RETURN.

To flip back to the ladder, swipe up with 2 fingers.
To flip to the alphabet, tap twice, or swipe down with 2 fingers.

If you’ve produced a valid word, the game tells you the word and its spelling, and changes the second line to this new word.
For example, if you picked to change the first letter of DOG to the letter ‘C’, the second line is now the word COG.
The third line is also set to the word COG, and the last line of the ladder is still the word CAT.

Now you can change the last letter of the word COG to the letter ‘T’, so the third line is now the word COT.
The last line of the ladder is still the word CAT.

If you are stuck, you can play the game with hints.
In the SETTINGS screen, turn on the setting GIVE HINTS.
As you flick left and right on the ladder line, you will hear a ding for the letter that you should change.
If still can’t figure out what letter to change it to, swipe down with three fingers, and it will tell you the word for that line.

Word Ladder, 3 or 4 Letters, Any Solution

You must solve the word ladder. Any solution that brings you to the final word is allowed.

Same as Word Ladder, DOG to CAT, Any Solution, but the starting and ending words are selected for you.

When you start solving 4 letter words, this game may take a little while to solve the ladder.
As it is looking for the answer, you will hear a ding-ding sound.
Sometimes it can take 5 or 10 seconds for this game come up with a solution.

You start out with 10 points for each step of the ladder.
For example, if the game requires 4 steps to solve, you start out with 40 points, or if the game requires 10 steps to solve, you start out with 100 points.
You lose 3 points for each word that’s not in the dictionary, and 5 points for each step more than the perfect score.
You lose 10 points each time you ask for a hint; to get a hint, swipe down with 3 fingers.
You lose 1 point for each minute you play the game.

To play the same letters again, at the end of the game, instead of swiping up with 1 finger, swipe up with 2 fingers.

Word Ladder, 3 or 4 Letters, Using Definitions

For each word in the ladder, the computer will tell you it’s definition. There may be multiple defintions for a word.
You must come up with the correct word using the defintion that is announced, and the word must differ from the prior word by only one letter.

Unlike the Word Ladder Any Solution games, in this game, you tap twice, type in the full word, and press RETURN.
There is no alphabet at the bottom of the screen.
If the word you type matches any of the words in the ladder, it will automatically be inserted into the correct line of the ladder.

You start out with 10 points for each step of the ladder.
You lose 5 points for each wrong answer; a wrong answer is one that does not match the definition or differs by more than one letter.
If you want another definition, swipe right with 3 fingers, but you lose 1 point for each additional definition.
If you want to hear the most recent definition again, tap with 3 fingers – you will not lose any points for repeating a definition.
You lose 10 points each time you ask for a hint; to get a hint, swipe down with 3 fingers.
To hear the definition for the word on another line of the ladder, swipe down to get to that line, then swipe down with 3 fingers to hear its first definition.
You lose 1 point for each minute you play the game.

Word Flick

Word Flick, 4 by 4

This game is inspired by Boggle.
You want to form as many words as possible in the 4 by 4 square of letters.
Words must be at least 3 letters long.

To start the word, move within the square of letters, flicking up, down, left or right.
When you found the letter you want, tap the screen twice.
To continue building the word, you can move in any direction: left, right, up, down or diagonally, one letter at a time, double tapping each time.
When you have completed the word you want, tap with 2 fingers.
The game will announce your word.

To better understand this, consider row 1: S T O P and row 2: A B C D.
You can create the word STOP entirely on row 1, by reading from left to right.
You can create the word POTS entirely on row 1, by reading from right to left.
You can create the word SAT by starting with letter S, then moving down to letter A, then moving right and up to letter T.
You cannot create the word SAD because the letter D is not next to the letter A.
You cannot create the word POP because you can only use the letter P once.

To clear the word you have built so far, tap three times.
To erase the letter you just picked, swipe left with 3 fingers. To erase more, keep swiping left with 3 fingers.
You can also press and hold 3 fingers instead of swiping left with 3 fingers.

When you enter a word that you already used, you are told the word, and the word you are working on is cleared.
To end the game, swipe right with 3 fingers.

Your score is based on the number of words and their length.
Three and four letter words are one point, five letter words are two points,
six letter words are three points, seven letter words are five points and words with eight of more letters are eleven points.

To change the game to use letter words instead of letters, such as “echo” for the letter “e”, use the settings screen.

Word Flick, 4 by 4, Timed

Same as Word Flick, 4 by 4, but game ends after three minutes. You can change the length of the game in the settings screen.

Word Flick, 5 by 5

Same as Word Flick, 4 by 4, but the square is 5 rows by 5 columns. To end the game, swipe right with 3 fingers.

Word Flick, 5 by 5, Timed

Same as Word Flick, 5 by 5, but game ends after three minutes. You can change the length of the game in the settings screen.

Spelling Dictionaries

You can choose which dictionary to use when checking the word you enter, or when it determines how many words can be created.
The scrabble dictionary uses American English spelling and has about 42,000 words, and has 876 three letter words, 2506 four letter words and 4428 five letter words. Many of these words are rather esoteric.
The ten-k dictionary uses American English spelling and has the ten thousand most commonly used words, and has 339 three letter words, 1048 four letter words and 1400 five letter words.
The British dictionary uses British English spelling and has about 75,000 words, and has 656 three letter words, 2470 four letter words and 4717 five letter words.

Hangman

Guess the letters in less than 11 moves.

Use the alphabet and flick left and right to guess a letter. To select the letter, tap twice.
To directly enter the letter using the keyboard, tap three times, and then type the letter.

If you are right, you are told how many of those letters are in the word.
If you are wrong, you get closer to losing.
Each time you use a letter, it is removed from the alphabet.

You can also tap three times, and type in your complete answer.
The answer must be the correct length; otherwise, you will hear a honk.
If you are right, you won the game. If you are wrong, you get closer to losing.

To hear the letters you’ve correctly put into puzzle so far, swipe right with 2 fingers.
To hear the correct letters, and the positions that are still open, swipe left with 2 fingers.

You can practice as many times as you want using the practice level.
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You lose 2 points for each wrong guess, and get 10 points for each correct guess.

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To give up and hear the answer, swipe right with 3 fingers.

Unscramble

Unscramble the letters to form a word.

To unscramble the word, flick left and right until you find the first letter to move, and tap twice.
Then flick left and right to find the second letter, and tap twice to swap the first and second letter.
Once you picked the first letter, you will hear a kettle drum.
After you swapped the two letters, the kettle drum stops.
To hear all of the letters, swipe left with 2 fingers.

If you made a mistake and want to end swap mode, swipe left with 3 fingers.
To enter the word directly using the keyboard, tap 3 times. Press the RETURN button to submit the word.
You win the game when the word you’ve unscrambled is found in the dictionary.

You can practice as many times as you want using the practice level.

To give up and hear the answer, swipe right with 3 fingers.

Spelling Dictionaries

You can choose which dictionary to use when checking your word.
The scrabble dictionary uses American English spelling and has about 42,000 words. Many of these words are rather esoteric.
The ten-k dictionary uses American English spelling and has the ten thousand most commonly used words.
The British dictionary uses British English spelling and has about 75,000 words.