Today I locked the start and end characters of the new KernType for it to behave like the existing game. Then I had to modify the letter selection code to skip locked letters.
When I first released this game a lot of people would complain: “I can’t move the start and end letters!”, well, that’s how it’s supposed to be. If you squeeze your letters together, then spacing them will be much easier. I could reduce the score if you squeezed your letters together, but at the time I barely had any idea of what I was doing and this was a feature beyond my experience.
In future collections the width of the word will not be constrained, instead the score will be reduced if you wish to pack your letters tightly. There may be locked letters, so this is added as a property of the stage instead as a property of the game.