wordOS

The dictionary is the content

Type a word and it compiles into a program. Programs earn bytes, bytes buy more memory, and more memory lets you type longer, stronger words. wordOS knows tens of thousands of real words, and no two behave alike: a word's length, its letters and its meaning decide how it earns, which words it helps and which ones it picks fights with.

Every word has a job

CAT is a miner that earns at a steady pace, a booster lifts everything around it, and a leech feeds on its neighbors until you level it up. Other jobs burst, echo or get lucky. Words have personalities too, from night owls to cranky ones, and rare letters make rare programs, so the right word can come out legendary.

Words that belong together know it

Put CAT on the board with MOUSE and it pounces, while DOG and BONE become allies. Rivals scuffle, combos set off board-wide bonuses, and some pairs form a phrase when they run together, like HOT and DOG. Hundreds of links, puns and easter eggs are hidden in the dictionary, and clues point you toward the ones you haven't found yet.

Evolve, recompile, reboot

Programs level up as they work. Compile the next stage of a word over the running one and it evolves. Take a program to v3 and recompile it a rarity higher. When a run slows down, reboot: you keep your codex and earn kernel points for a deep upgrade tree, including a background daemon that runs a second board of your words.

A terminal worth staring at

Phosphor glow, scanlines and the hum of an old CRT, with synthesized sound throughout. As your memory grows you unlock more than ten terminal themes, each with a matching app icon.

Fair by design

No ads, no subscriptions, no energy timers and no tracking. wordOS is free to try for three reboots, and one purchase unlocks the full game. It plays offline, and your progress syncs between your devices through iCloud.