Word Rescue

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Word Rescue

Developer(s)	Redwood Games
Publisher(s)	Apogee Software
Platform(s)	DOS
Release date	1992
Genre(s)	platform game, educational
Mode(s)	Single player
Media	Floppy disk

Word Rescue is an educational platform game released by Apogee Software in March, 1992. The game revolves around matching words with their pictures, introducing simple vocabulary such as "sit", "purple", "one", "hat", etc., while avoiding various dangers.

Like many Apogee games of the time, Word Rescue includes 3 episodes, with only the first episode playable in the shareware version.

Episode 1 - Visit Gruzzleville and the Castle
Episode 2 - Explore GruzzleBad Caverns
Episode 3 - See the spooky Haunted House

Apogee still sells the registered version of this game. ^[1]

The game is followed by Word Rescue Plus.

1 The story
2 The gameplay
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] The story

The story centers on creatures called "The Gruzzles" who can't read. They won't let anyone else read either, so they are stealing words out of books.

Playing as a boy or girl, you must help Benny Bookworm take back all the stolen words and match them with their meanings so he may put them back in the books.

[edit] The gameplay

The player moves around the screen in a platform shooter style environment. He/she tries to match words with their corresponding pictures, located randomly in the level. In addition, the player must avoid dangers such as Gruzzles, waterfalls, dripping slime, fire, and bottomless pits.

Once all 7 words are matched, Benny Bookworm magically turns your words into a key, which is used to open the door in the level which takes you to the next level.

If you match a word with the wrong picture, a "Gruzzle" appears and you must press the Spacebar to order Benny the Bookworm to pour slime on it to make it go away permanently. Touching a Gruzzle will result in the player having to start the level over. You only have a limited supply of slime but slime can be replenished by touching slime buckets or completing the mystery word (see below).

Depending on the difficulty level, there are also a set number of Gruzzles on each level. The Easy difficulty is easy for young players, as there is only one predetermined Gruzzle in the level. The Hard difficulty, however, often has as many or more Gruzzles as there are words to find, making the game challenging even for adults.

Not all of the Gruzzles are the same in each game. In episode 1, there are four normal Gruzzles, but in episodes 2 and 3, the turquoise colored Gruzzle is replaced with a bug-type Gruzzle.

One word from the level is randomly chosen at the beginning of each level to be the mystery word, and the letters of that word are placed in a seemingly random order around the level. (Once you play for a while, you get to see that they are in the same places every time.) If you complete the word by collecting the letters of that word in order, you are given bonus points. Bonus points can also be collected by touching books, sliming Gruzzles and matching words with their pictures.