Spell-O-Gram for Mac is compatible with Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks.
Spell-O-Gram for Windows is compatible with Win 7 and Win 8.
Mac Version 1.7.0 is compiled for 32 bit Cocoa. Windows Version 1.5.1 is a bug fix and is compatible with Win 7 and Win 8.
This application includes a built-in, default word list of over 29,000 words (4 to 8 letters). Spell-O-Gram is a word game with a purpose and a twist. You can think of it as flash card practice with scrambled words. One home schooler intends to use this application to drill her students on vocabulary, history, geography, etc. You make the Dictionary, a list of words, from which words show up scrambled in the game. There are five turns to a game and each turn lasts 30, 60 or 90 seconds, selectable by the user; a countdown is displayed to let you know when the end of the turn is near. When you click the "Start Game" button, you see in the Letter Pot field the scrambled letters of a word taken at random from the Dictionary. Your goal is to enter the unscrambled word. Enter your guess into Your Word and click on the "Enter" button (or press the Return key). If your word is the expected word, you are given points and the next scrambled word is displayed. At the end of the turn, the unscrambled word is displayed at the bottom of the window. When the turn is over, click the "Start Turn" button to continue through your five turns. The "End Game" button clears all words and scoring. You get ten points for each word plus one point for each letter in the word. If your Total Points at the end of five turns is in the top ten scores, your name and score are added to the High Scores window. The High Scores window can be opened at any time from the menu bar. You can edit a name in the High Scores window by double-clicking a name, typing a new name, and pressing the "Enter" button. Sound can be turned on/off. A Help window is available.
Displayed above, the Letter Pot has seven letters. The player has chosen to use 30 seconds per turn. The score in the third turn with 16 seconds to go is 47. The score for the game so far is 109. The Dictionary was a list of U.S. Presidents. The expected word in this case was harding.
Displayed above is the Maintenance Window, where the Dictionary is managed. The table is a list of some of the U.S. Presidents. You can make a Dictionary file from this window by clearing the existing table ("Clear Table button), adding/deleting/sorting words and saving the list ("Save File") or you can use any word processing application to make a Dictionary plain text file. A Dictionary file should have one word per line; each word can have up to 15 lowercase letters. You can click on the "Load File" button to navigate to a Dictionary file which will be loaded into the table and used in the game. The Dictionary file is saved automatically when you quit the application and reloaded again automatically when you next launch the application.
Displayed above is a view of Spell-O-Gram using a Dictionary of foreign words (Czech words in this case). If you use foreign characters, use TextEdit (or similar) to make the list of words, select Format/Make Plain Text and save as UTF-8 format.
Click here to download Version 1.7.0 (2.1 MB) for Mac (OS 10.6 or later).
Click here to download Version 1.5.1 (1.3 MB) for Win 7 and Win 8.