Enunciate!: a party game for saying hard words out loud

The idea behind the game

Everyone has a word they’re not sure how to say: Worcestershire, quinoa, otorhinolaryngologist. Trying one out loud in front of friends is funny, and finding out who was right is even better.

Most word games are about spelling or definitions and are played alone. Enunciate! is made for a group in one room: one phone, no accounts, a few seconds to learn, and a reason for everyone to lean in on every turn.

How we designed it

1. Keep the phone moving. Each turn shows one word, a timer and a clear “pass the phone” moment, so nobody waits long.
2. Let the room be the judge. After each attempt, the group votes Nailed It or Not Quite, which is half the fun.
3. Always reveal the answer. Every word comes with its phonetic spelling and a recorded pronunciation, so everyone learns something each round.

Scoring rewards courage: harder words are worth more, and answering in the first ten seconds earns a bonus. Each player can also have their own difficulty cap, so a mixed group of ages can play the same game fairly.

How the word bank works

The game is only as good as its words, so most of the engineering went into a word bank that maintains itself. Adding a word is one step; the rest happens automatically.

• Definitions and phonetics come from a public dictionary. When a word is missing or unclear there, Google’s Gemini fills the gap on a 15-minute schedule.
• Recorded pronunciations are generated with Google Cloud Text-to-Speech every few minutes and stored as small audio files, so playback is instant.
• A fallback voice on the phone itself covers any word whose recording isn’t ready yet.

Built with

• Flutter: one codebase, shipped to iPhone and ready for Android.
• Firebase: Firestore for the word bank, Cloud Storage for audio, Cloud Functions for the scheduled jobs, plus Analytics and Crashlytics.
• Google Cloud Text-to-Speech: the recorded pronunciations.
• Gemini 2.5 Flash: definitions and phonetic spellings for words the dictionary doesn’t cover.

Where it is now

Enunciate! has been free on the App Store since March 4, 2026.

• A finished product, not a demo. A how-to-play guide, team play, scoring, highlights and a celebration screen all shipped in version 1.0.
• Built to grow. The word bank grows without an app update, and an in-app feature request link lets players tell us what to add next.
• Proof of pace. It went from first commit to App Store review in a matter of weeks.

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Questions about Enunciate!