The SpanForge cast
Each friend shows you one idea by how they act. Meet them all and see how the ideas fit together.
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Stilt Trace-to-connect - a black-necked stilt who steps only where the words are; tracing a real word to claim a path IS the whole game -
Bittern The two-bridge - a bittern who holds two stones that share two empty neighbours; keeping a two-bridge IS keeping your connection safe -
Wader The Meaning gate - an avocet who glosses a word before it counts; a word is playable only after its meaning is shown -
Snipe Block-the-shortest-path - a snipe who zig-zags to cut the opponent's shortest connection -
Plover Claim-by-adjacency - a plover who extends only from cells already touching her territory -
Curlew Bridge-letters - a curlew who reaches across a gap with a shared letter -
Godwit The digraph tile - a godwit who reads NG, CH, or TH as one step: two letters, one tile -
Reeve Longest-word reconcile - a reeve who settles a tie: when two traces conflict, the longest real word wins the cell -
Dunlin Resource-degeneration - a dunlin who, when the good words run dry, plays plain Hex; the lesson that the board is a resource -
Skimmer Anti-shame host / tier handicap - a black skimmer who frames not-knowing-a-word and runs the gloss-for-younger handicap