Today I give to you a free game you can play in the browser. Here is the pitch:
Do you also always mix up your ᛘ and ᛦ and your ᚾ and ᛅ when translating rune inscriptions?
No more! Solve the Futhark Puzzle Challenge and upgrade your Futhark skills this summer!
The Futhark Puzzle Challenge is a little online brain burner I made using Twine. Play it in the browser, it's a single web page with embedded scripts.
You manipulate a tableau of runes to form one or more words before you run out of moves. Solve all 20 to win.
Futhark is the name of the rune alphabet used by the Vikings. I was working on a card game using the 16 runes of the Younger Futhark when one of my play testers said it should be an online puzzle game. "I don't want to make an online puzzle game," I answered. Then I went ahead and made one.
Twine is an open source tool for creating interactive fiction. I used it to create Mars Crisis some years ago. Some things are super easy to do, like writing text passages with links between them and hidden text that pops up when you click on text. Other things are super complicated and fiddly. Like having too strong options about how to format and display things. So it's best in a browser and will work ok on a smartphone.
The game will punish you for confusing similar runes so pay attention and find ways to move runes around using as few moves as possible. I promise you, you will need every extra move you have to complete the final three puzzles.
Are you ready for it? Take the Futhark Puzzle Challenge!