Webster: The Word Game IBM PCjr. Demonstration
8Webster: The Word Game was released by CBS Software for several home computer platforms but for the IBM PC compatibles it was only released for the IBM PCjr. CBS Software released other games exclusively for the PCjr., including Timebound and the original versions of Ernie's Magic Shapes. Big Bird's Special Delivery.
This game is interested due to the animated "raster bars" style effect shown on the borders on the title screen. This sort of feature tends to get lost (DOSBox) or not shown correctly (86Box) by emulators. The PCjr.'s graphics controller can set the background and border colors independently in graphics modes, CGA can only do that in text modes. Otherwise there is nothing of consequence which this game does graphically that CGA cannot do. The game also supports the PCjr. 4-voice sound chip as well as the PC speaker, alternating sound effects from each source. The envelopes on some of the square wave notes heard here cannot be reproduced on chips that clone the TI SN76496 PSG without altering the sound data.
You may note in the beginning that I run the game off a floppy disk. The game is a single-file executable, unfortunately no original disk image is available. I booted a stock IBM PC-DOS v2.1 disk. This does not load a memory manager driver which would improve the PCjr. speed to PC levels. The raster bar effect is limited to only the top quarter of the screen when the game is run at PC speeds. The sound effects are also significantly faster as well. So for this game PCjr.- speed is essential for correct operation, something emulators still struggle with.