About Dandle
Dandle is a free browser game that mixes two things that don't usually meet: crossword-style word building and real-time physics. Words have weight. Every word you spell becomes a chain of wooden letter cubes, and the structure you build has to tip, slide, swing or fly its way into a goal.
The idea
Most word games are about finding the best word. Dandle asks a different question: where should that word go, and what will it do when it gets there? A seven-letter word laid flat is a bridge. The same word stood on end is a tower that will fall the way you lean it. Hang it off a zip line and it is a cable car; strap a thruster to one end and it is a rocket. The spelling stays simple, so most of the thinking goes into the shape you build.
The name comes from "dandle", to bounce something gently up and down, which is roughly what happens to your words most of the time.
How it is made
Dandle runs entirely in your web browser with no download or install. The 3D scene is drawn with Babylon.js, and every letter is a separate rigid body in the Havok physics engine, welded to its neighbours so a whole word behaves like one object. The physics runs at a fixed sixty steps a second, so a given set of moves plays out the same way every time.
The visual style borrows from old newspaper comics: a halftone dot pattern, a little film grain and bold printed letters. The music has no audio files at all. It is generated live in the browser, and its tempo rises with every letter you add, so a big structure literally sounds busier than a small one.
The dictionary has about 173,000 English words, built from WordNet plus a small list of extra allowances, so almost any real word you can think of will work.
One idea per level
The 30-level campaign is designed so that each level teaches exactly one new thing: walls, gaps, honey blocks, moving platforms, letter rules, zip lines, impulse blocks, ice, the ball, bombs, wheels and thrusters. The levels after an introduction push that idea further, and only later levels combine several at once. Every campaign level has a par set by the best solution found while building it, so there is always a tighter way to win.
Community levels are where the mixing happens. Anyone can open the level editor, build a level from the same blocks the campaign uses, and publish it, but only after beating it themselves in Play Test. That rule means every community level has been solved at least once, and its par is its maker's own winning letter count.
How Dandle is funded
Dandle is made by one independent developer, Davis Dilanchian, and is funded in two simple ways:
- The campaign is free, with an occasional short ad between levels: never during play, never in the first five levels, and at most one every few minutes.
- Community levels are a one-time $2.99 purchase for lifetime access. Buying it also turns off every ad in the game.
Paying never changes the game itself. There are no power-ups, hints, extra letters or shortcuts for sale, and no "watch an ad for a reward" offers. If you use an ad blocker, that's fine; the game works the same, and sharing your replays online is just as welcome a way to support it.
Share your replays
Dandle keeps the last few seconds of play in memory. After a win you can save that replay as a video or GIF and post it anywhere. Some of the best moments in the game are the near misses: a tower that wobbles for a full second before tipping into the goal, or a cable car that slides off the end of its line.
Get in touch
Bug reports, level ideas and feedback all go straight to the developer. The contact page has the email address, and the in-game Copy debug log button (in Settings, and on the win and loss screens) puts a detailed report on your clipboard to paste into an email.