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Find words in a grid of letters. Get the fanciest (and most combo-friendly) pants for your letters. Unearth objects lost to time. And build the best museum the world has ever seen.

Make words that let you make words

Find words in a randomized grid of letters. The used letters will leave empty spaces, which the other letters can bridge, allowing for words that weren’t possible before, over larger and larger areas.

Your score depends on both the length of the word, and the size of the area it spans. Make longer words over bigger areas to score more points and reach the level’s goal before the timer runs out!

But it’s also a roguelite?

If you manage to complete the level, you will be presented with 3 pairs of pants for 3 different letters. Pants give unique bonuses to letters, a letter can be worth more, or maybe it multiplies the whole word’s value, or maybe it gives you bombs or does other things!

And there’s a museum involved??

As you dig through the letters, you also dig through the dirt. Beneath the earth you will find objects lost to time. (and to their owners) Uncover these sometimes-precious items, sell them, and expand your museum, then place the items in the museum and unlock new gameplay modifiers as the museum’s collection completes!

Plays entirely with the mouse. An average run may last 15 to 30 minutes.

You may play with the English, French, or Spanish dictionary.

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This game was partially funded on Patreon by people like you!

Our 3€-per-month Patreon subscription gives you our games as they come out, starting with the last game that came out when you subscribe.

If you have the means, subscribing for 5€ per month makes your name appear in the credits of the games that come out while you are subscribed, and gives you the OST of the games on Bandcamp. For 10€ per month, you also get access to a Discord channel where we frequently post news, articles and other resources we find interesting or helpful.

The games are given out as Itch keys and Steam keys to be redeemed on our website. The games initially release on Itch, and then come to Steam a bit later. When the game releases on a platform, the corresponding key appears. You can cancel your subscription at anytime and it won’t revoke your game keys.

This game is currently an Itch exclusive. But it will come out on Steam eventually. If you feel so inclined, wishlisting If Letters Had Pants there would be very helpful to us!

Buying the game here on Itch, or getting it through our Patreon subscription, will get you a Steam key when it releases there.

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Discord

If you’d like you can come to our Discord to share your progress and compare longest words and best combos!

It’s also a great place to talk with us and get news for this and our next projects!

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Are you press or a content creator?

If you’re a streamer, youtuber, or press and you’d like to cover the game, you can request a press key using this form! We’ve also uploaded a few assets you might find useful, including screenshots and thumbnail material! Find them here!

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About PUNKCAKE

As PUNKCAKE Délicieux we make a new game every month, which you can get by subscribing to our Patreon for 3€/month or buy separately on Itch io for 6$!

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Changelog:

Quickpatch v1.3b: (12/06/2025)

• Fixed a crash when picking up mushroom.
• Fixed the timer resuming in the middle of scoring after picking up an object with a pants effect.

Patch v1.3: (11/06/2025)

• Added a new special character: █
• Added 4 new pants.
• Added 8 new collectibles to the museum.
• Added a stats panel to the museum.
• Reworked the Item Collector Pants
• Reworked the score goal progression to ramp up faster.
• The timer no longer gets extra time from leveling up beyond level 11.
• Finding objects with the bomb now pauses the timer.
• Fixed terrain visual bugs when digging to layer 30 and below.
• Fixed a visual bug with the background grass around the grid.
• Fixed a crash when restarting a run during the scoring animation.
• Fixed a crash when finding an object at very end of the timer.
• Tentative fix for a crash during scoring.
• Fixed another visual bug with the favour unlock animation.
• The Gadsby favour now comes with pants for E, making it unupgradable.
• Gadsby effect no longer carries to the next run.
• Gadsby effect is no longer frame-limited.
• The screen now scales to the window’s dimensions instead of stretching.

Quickpatch v1.2c: (19/05/2025)

• Fixed the museum always showing “100% complete”.

Quickpatch v1.2b: (17/05/2025)

• Fixed a crash on starting a new run after going beyond level 1.
• Fixed a crash with the Cursed Pants.
• Fixed a crash on going too far in the museum with the keyboard.
• Going backwards in the museum now slides the exhibits to the right.

Patch v1.2: (16/05/2025)

• Added the Streamer favour, giving you time to look at chat.
• Added the Prowess favour, for the experienced word finder.
• Added 3 new pants.
• Reworked and broke the Water Pants into two other new pants.
• Added some 2000 words to the game’s English dictionary.
• Consonent and vowel multipliers no longer multipy each other.
• Reworked the price modifications of all the favours to be more generous overall.
• Reworked the score goal progression.
• Mushroom now take one more word to grow.
• Enunciation triggers now cost 1 second off the timer per effect mimed.
• Added a completion indicator at the top of the museum plan.
• You can now navigate the museum with the left and right keys.
• Finding objects during scoring now takes less time and uses the scoring time acceleration.
• Now communicating visually that clicking during scoring accelerates the scoring animation.
• Values going up now also accelerates as successive pants trigger.
• A click started during the scoring animation will no longer suddenly become valid when that animation is done.
• Making another word is now allowed earlier after a previous one.
• Reworked the way pants are shown on gameover when there are over 12.
• You can now keep on playing if you get to the point where no more pants are available for your run.
• Now correctly pausing the timer when the goal has been reached.
• Limited the depth you can dig to 32 layers below the last cleared layer to avoid visual glitches.
• Added some helpful tips to the black screen after the Punkcake intro, while the rest of the game loads.
• Fixed the scrolling of the objects getting stuck on the gameover screen.
• Fixed the ‘new’ icon always showing on all objects when entering the museum.
• Fixed a crash on using boosted Cursed Pants.
• Fixed weird behaviour when using two ‘&’ at once.
• Fixed a bug where the favour unlock animation would flash all the buttons on that menu.

Patch v1.1: (13/05/2025)

• Added 5 new objects.
• Made the mushrooms a little less powerful and unupgradable.
• The museum now displays its existing possessions before its inexistant ones.
• Now showing a little icon next to objects that were recently added to the museum.
• Fixed an issue where a collected object would fail to appear on the gameover screen, and then crash the game when you clicked “Sell All”.
• Fixed a bug where the Sell All button money amount did not match what was actually left to sell.
• Fixed the list of items in the museum duplicating itself every time you went into the museum.

Quickpatch v1.0b: 12/05/2025

• Fixed a random crash on selling things at the gameover.
• Fixed inconsistency between Hatter Pants description and Hatter Pants effect.
• Objects you have just sent to the museum should now appear properly in the museum right away.