Balloon Words

Balloon Words is the old guessing game with the gloom taken out of it. Instead of a gallows there is a wicker basket, instead of a stick figure there is a cheerful fox in goggles, and instead of a hanging there is a soft landing in the daisies. Pick a category, or take the Mix, and the word appears as a line of blank flags on a rope of bunting. Tap a letter on the wooden board and every flag carrying it spins round to show its face. Tap a letter the word does not have and one balloon goes with a bang, the fox gulps, and the whole rig sinks a little lower in the sky.

There are six hundred and thirty words and short phrases across eighteen categories: animals, food, countries, cities, jobs, sports, space, ocean, music, school, weather, transport, garden, kitchen, holidays, colours, body and clothes. Everything is ordinary, everyday language a child would meet at school, and the phrases show their spaces as a gap in the bunting with a little ribbon tied at the break. Easy gives you eight balloons, Normal six and Hard just four, and two hints a round will hand you a vowel when you are truly stuck.

Play it three ways. Solo deals a fresh word whenever you want one and keeps a streak of wins that grows as long as you keep guessing. Daily gives everyone the same word for the day, once a day, with its own streak. Pass and play lets one person type a secret word or phrase into the phone, hide the screen and hand it over for the other to guess. Your best streaks are kept in your own browser, nowhere else. Letters guess, H takes a hint, N deals a new word, P pauses and M mutes the fair.