Fitting somewhere between the coin-operated quiz games of the 1960's and the emerging trend of video games in the 1970's, Allied Leisure's Unscramble gave players a new kind of challenge, albeit a very small one. First appearing in the early 1970's, Unscramble displayed onto the game's screen a scrambled word of three letters. Yes, three. The player's job was to (you guessed it) unscramble the word, earning a higher score the quicker the puzzle was solved.

Before long, it became evident to Allied Leisure that most of its customers just weren't getting stymied by puzzles like "tca" and "ipg." Those may have been fine for the Sunday comics section's "Junior Jumble," but gamers wanted a bigger challenge-something more along the lines of regular "Jumble."

Never ones to ignore customer feedback, Allied Leisure responded, releasing Unscramble Deluxe soon afterward. Now stocked with four- and five-letter words, Unscramble Deluxe gave players a bit more befuddlement for their buck, putting a big "selim" on the "cefa" of many an Allied Leisure "tecivxuee."

(Solution to today's jumble: smile, face, executive - not slime café execute i.v.)