Word Play

Doesn't really have much staying power as a concept. The act of picking out high-scoring words takes long enough to kill any sense of momentum, and the power-ups feel like they're intentionally designed to almost never create runaway scaling situations, so it kinda just ends up feeling like Boggle with more steps and not much more payoff. It's probably frustrating to the dev to be compared unfavorably to Balatro, but Word Play has too much friction inherent to the design to get away with such uninteresting power-up combinations, and Balatro is the perfect case study in why you should make the opposite choice. I feel like I would need to sit through many more matches to find a truly good set of power-ups, whereas Balatro feels like a run can change dramatically with a single Joker, and that's the hook Word Play is missing for me right now.

A month ago I wrote Examinator, and it didn't work. It would have been my best word yet. I save and quit and hoped it would be added. Asked the dev directly on bluesky even. Today I tried again, and still I remain denied. Where's my points Mark? I want my points! GIVE ME!

It's not bad but could be a lot better. All the modifiers and upgrades are just really boring and add very little.

For a game about words, the dictionary should be reasonably extensive. In my playtime, I keep running into words that are missing. Simple things like the word "balmed". Yes I can play "ambled" with the same letters, but obviously these things can be relevant for a setup because positions matter for various bonuses. It makes the experience more frustrating than fun. I could understand this for niche words, but it happened too frequently for my taste. As much as the core mechanics are fun and the baseline of the game is solid, the regular rejections of valid words completely spoiled the game for me.

I really REALLY want to like this game. But I have a hard time recommending it for word nerds: - The order of when modifiers happen in combination with special rounds is really unclear. If I have a modifier that says "if four tiles +10", and I have a special round that says "words shorter than six score zero points", I expect that the +10 adds at the end of the consideration of the special round effect. - Even if the above effect is completely clear, bonus points implies that they are added after the word score, if the special round "words shorter than six score zero", I would expect that the bonus points to be added after the word score is calculated. If it doesn't, why even call it bonus points? - It feels that your success is more luck based than it is skill based - utilizing a strong vocabulary is strictly a skill based pursuit, the addition of rougelike elements makes the use of good, strong word choices with standard letter based scoring (like scrabble) to be more arbitr...

This is a great game to play with an audience of friends all gathered around the screen. Many minds think of bigger words faster. I'd love if there was a joker tile that can be any letter but apart from that the game is basically flawless. Great replayability and its super easy to pick up. The sound effects are simple and satisfying and the art style is perfect for this type of game. 10/10 would reccomend

Addicting. Easy to pick up and play whenever. Perfect for those intermittent moments with the Steam Deck. Perfect for late night, just before bed sessions. Word Play is the roguelike word game you have been searching for. Some are saying the multipliers are bunk, but I think they give just the right amount of points to make the game challenging, but fair. I am SO close to beating hard mode. I have made it to round 10 on hard. The word that has earned me the most points is VALIDATION, but your chances of success on higher difficulties are dependent on good modifiers and the right letters. This makes me come back to try and try again.

best game on steam

Cool game. Main limitation is not knowing enough words. Having a system where I can buy more than one perk per shop would be nice tho

This is what I wanted Wordatro to be like: properly scales, still challenging, and feels better balanced. However, there's still a lot to be desired in terms of perks. A lot of the time, I'm not getting any use out of them. I think because there's so many options and you're only seeing 3 and only getting to pick 1. So at every round, you're having to pick between a modifier, gift, or upgrade. So it ends up feeling bad, for example, if there's a modifier that works with special tiles and an upgrade/gift that will finally add special tiles to your set but you can't get both because they're being treated mutually exclusive when they're actually interdependent. This is probably why a lot of rougelites allow users to get more than 1 item if they're in a different category. For Word Play specifically, gameplay might feel better if reach round, you can pick 1 out of 3 modifiers and then 1 from the gifts/upgrades. Upgrades section can then be further limited to like 3 at any given time. Ju...