Vowel Vanish

What is Vowel Vanish?

Vowel Vanish is a missing vowels game. Each word appears on stage with its consonants in place and its vowels gone. Your job is to fill the gaps from left to right using the five vowel buttons. Get the word and the magician's hat pops, sparkles fly, and the next word appears.

Only A, E, I, O and U vanish. Y always stays put, so a word like CANDY shows as C_NDY. It's free, it plays in your browser on a phone, tablet or computer, and a round of Classic takes about a minute, so it's an easy one to play on a coffee break.

How to play

1. Press Play for Classic, or pick Daily Show or Lightning.
2. Look at the word and the gaps. Each gap is one missing vowel.
3. Tap the vowels in order, left to right. The first gap fills first.
4. When every gap is filled correctly, you score and a new word comes up.

Here's a nice rule we added: if your vowels make a different real word that fits, it still counts. Our game will tell you it works too. So if the word is B_LL and you tap E for BELL when we were thinking of BALL, you still get the points.

Controls

On a phone or tablet, tap the five colored vowel buttons at the bottom. Below them are the Wand and Skip buttons.

On a computer, press A E I O U on your keyboard. Tab or the right arrow skips a word, Space or ? uses the wand, and Esc pauses.

Modes

Classic

You have 60 seconds on the clock. A wrong vowel costs 2 seconds. Skipping a word costs 3 seconds. Solve a word with 3 or more missing vowels and you get 1 second back. Words start at 4 letters and stretch out to 7 or 8 as you keep going.

Daily Show

Same rules as Classic, but everyone gets the same words in the same order that day. It resets at midnight UTC. Play on back to back days to build a streak.

Lightning

No main clock. Instead every word has its own short fuse, starting a little over 5 seconds and getting shorter as you go, down to about 2.5 seconds. A wrong vowel burns 1 second off the fuse. If the fuse runs out, or you skip, you take a strike. Three strikes and the show is over.

Scoring

Each word is worth 10 points, times the number of missing vowels, times the word's length. Then two bonuses stack on top.

• Streak bonus: every 3 words in a row adds x0.5, up to x4. A wrong vowel or a skip resets your streak.
• Speed bonus: in Classic and the Daily Show, solve a word in under 2.5 seconds for x1.5. In Lightning the bonus grows with how much fuse you have left, up to x2.

So a 7 letter word with 3 missing vowels is worth 210 points on its own, and it can be worth several times that with a good streak and a fast answer.

The magic wand

You start each round with 1 wand charge. Use it and the wand fills in the next missing vowel for you. Every 8 words you solve recharges one, and you can hold up to 3. Using the wand doesn't break your streak, so it's a better choice than skipping when you're stuck on a long word.

Daily streaks, leaderboards and stages

Classic and the Daily Show each have a leaderboard. Sign in to post your scores there. Lightning keeps your personal best on your device.

Every word you solve counts toward new theater stages, which you can pick from Stages on the menu.

Tips for missing vowels puzzles

• Read the consonants as a shape. Don't sound out every gap. Try to see the whole word. STR_NG is almost always STRONG or STRING, and either one counts.
• Common endings help. Gaps before NG are often I (ING), gaps before N at the end are often E or O, and a gap right after Q is always U.
• Double gaps are usually pairs like EA, OU, AI, EE or OO. Try the most common pairing first.
• When in doubt, try E. It's the most common vowel in English by a long way.
• Skip early, not late. In Classic a skip costs 3 seconds. Staring at a word for 6 seconds costs more.
• Use the wand on the long words. They're worth the most points and a single filled vowel often makes the rest obvious.
• Keep the streak above all. Getting to x4 is worth far more than the 1.5 speed bonus, so don't rush into a wrong vowel.

Like word puzzles with a timer? Word Snake has you spell words by steering a snake, and Alpha Rain drops letters into a well for you to clear.

Questions