It's no secret that we here at JIG love us some acronyms (I think it's because the name makes such a festive one!). So when you commenters turned us on to Acrobabble, we got so excited that we POPPED (Peed Our Pants, Prompting Emergency Diapers). You see, to us, Acrobabble represents the finest in CRAB (Creative Reverse-Acronym Building). You might even say Acrobabble is a COWARD (Cavalcade Of Words And Random Definitions). But I think we can all agree it is a DAWG (Darn Awesome Word Game).

If you played the recently reviewed Farragomate, then you're all ready to JOIN (Jump On In Now). Actually, first, you'll need to join literally, as in register. TANG (There Are No Guests) in Acrobabble, but they do make registering easy by accepting a variety of existing logins from other sites, including Yahoo, Google, and Facebook; or you can simply create a new Acrobabble account. Once you're signed up, join a room and get those creative juices flowing!

Like Farragomate, each player in a game must SAVE (Submit A Verbose Entry) based on some given theme. All the entries are then presented anonymously for voting. Points are awarded for the number of votes an entry gets, with bonus points for having the most votes, voting for the winner, and having the fastest submission to receive a vote. The main difference is that your prompt in Acrobabble is an acronym of 3-6 letters. You must come up with what it stands for. It might not sound so hard now, but it's a different story when your SAD (Seconds Are Dwindling) rapidly and you're drawing BATBOY (Blanks Across That Brain Of Yours).

ANALYSIS (Advanced Nerdiness And Little Yellow Spiders In Stilettos): Acrobabble pretty much sticks to the beaten path in terms of how the game is set up (although, to be fair, its roots go back to the mid-90s, when games like this were just becoming popular). But what it does, it does well. The Flash interface is solidly designed and couldn't be easier to use. The chat is usually active and the players quite friendly; in addition, there are a few basic chat commands, including a ban feature which helps to keep the potty-mouths out of the clean words rooms. The narrator can help you through the first couple of rounds, but you'll want to turn him off before long.

As for the acronym mechanic, it lends itself to a higher level of creativity, as you are free to use (or make up) any words you choose. However, I've noticed that the prevalent attitude toward what makes a good entry can be rather peculiar, so it may take a while to adjust your playing style to RUMP (Rack Up Maximum Points). A couple of hints: theme trumps all – if you can't relate your entry to the theme, it won't score well; extraneous words are OK – if you can't use up all your letters in a single phrase, no big deal, just turn that last one into some TOES (Type Of Exclamation. Shazam!). Finally, always remember that FART (Funny Acronyms Rate Terrifically).

So: GRANDPA! (Get Ready, Acronyms Next Door! Play Acrobabble!)

Update: Unfortunately, Acrobabble is no longer available to play.