Word Rescue (DOS)

Word Rescue

Platform: DOS Year: 1992 Developer: Redwood Games

Word Rescue is an early reader education game using a platform action mechanic. In the game, the illiterate Gruzzles are trying to steal words from books to prevent everyone else from learning to read. You must match words to pictures in order to get the words back, while avoiding the Gruzzles or covering them with slime.

The game uses bright colorful graphics and a nice jazzy soundtrack. The puzzle element of the game is simple for young children, and while it has a difficulty meter, only the action element gets harder, not the complexity of the words.

Screenshots

The title screen. Entering my name; the game remembers who you are. The main menu. This is a gripping story! Dumping slime on a Gruzzle in level 1. You can play male or female characters. Title screen for the Plus episode.

Music

VGMPF Album Art

Word Rescue uses a simple jazzy soundtrack consisting of only three songs that cycle through as you go further in the game. The game credits the music to Voyetra Technologies, as the songs for episodes 1-3 were taken from Voyetra MusiClips, a royalty-free collection of songs for people to use in their productions. When Word Rescue Plus was released (an extra episode with 45 levels, in contrast to the first three episodes with 55 levels total) Bobby Prince composed new music for the new episode.

Recording

This recording is incomplete.

#	Title	Composer	Arranger	Length	Listen	Download
01	Word Rescue Theme 1	Voyetra Technologies	Karen Crowther	1:38		Download
02	Word Rescue Theme 2	Voyetra Technologies	Karen Crowther	1:43		Download
03	Word Rescue Theme 3	Voyetra Technologies	Karen Crowther	2:18		Download
04	Obey the Rules of Grammar	Bobby Prince	Bobby Prince	3:11		Download
05	You Subtracted Me Before I Could Make You My Little Addition	Bobby Prince	Bobby Prince	1:14		Download
06	I Can Spell "Reggae" - Can You?	Bobby Prince	Bobby Prince	2:19	-	Download

Credits

• Ripper: TheAlmightyGuru (1-3), Malvineous (Plus, MIDIs)
• Recorder: TheAlmightyGuru (1-3), Malvineous (Plus)
• Game Credits:
  • Program copyright: Karen Crowther
  • Music copyright: Voyetra Technologies credited as Voyetra
  • Music copyright: Bobby Prince credited as Robert Prince

(Source 1 - The game credits its music to Voyetra Technologies because the songs came from MusiClips, which were converted into CMF most likely by Karen Crowther, the programmer)
(Source 2 - Bobby Prince lists himself as the composer for the music, although he only composed songs for Word Rescue Plus, not for the first three episodes of the original game.)
(Source 3 - The game credits its music to Bobby Prince but only in the Plus episode)

The v2.0 release switched audio engines to use the WORX Toolkit.

Jeff Batter and Gray Fowler may have been the Voyetra songs' composers, but it's unconfirmed.

Game Rip

Format	Download
	Download (Info)

The music files are simply CMF songs with a different extension and located in the main install folder. The same three songs are reused in each of the first three episodes, with three new ones reused throughout the Plus episode. The music for the first three episodes was converted from MID, while the Plus episode was probably converted from SNG (Voyetra) to CMF (perhaps via MID) as the software Bobby Prince used at the time primarily worked with SNG and MID files.

Audio Devices

Music
Sound

(No Source - Game auto-detects an OPL2 compatible device.)

Releases

USA Title: Word Rescue Platform: DOS Released: 1992-03-?? Publisher: Apogee Software, Ltd.     World Title: Word Rescue Platform: DOS Released: 1998-01-05 Publisher: Digital River, Inc.

Links

• mobygames.com/game/dos/word-rescue - MobyGames.
• gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/958068-word-rescue-episode-1-visit-gruzzleville-and-the - GameFAQs.
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_Rescue - Wikipedia.