Tomb of the Bloodletter

Clever implementation of this type of gameplay - best of luck going forward!

Such a simple concept made infinitely more complex by the space of words that exist in your brain. I spent over an hour in my first run just trying to make the best words... For a game you don't have to have your fingers on the keyboard for 80% of, it's shockingly good. The art is endearing. The music is very backgroundy but in a good way; I played that whole 80 minutes without an album or a video playing on another monitor... just vibed with what the game had on offer. It's so engaging, it doesn't even matter. Super well done, easily worth full price.

For someone like me who isn't good at spelling, this game is hard LOL. It is a word Balatro with similar styles to Slay the Spire 2. If you enjoy a hard rouge like thats also scrabble this is for you. Even though I think you have to be a masochist to play this for long stretches.... this game is incredibly fun and well designed. This game will make you think (or maybe im just kinda dumb LOL) Still this will keep me entertained for a while to come, I can play this and experience something different each time.

This game is REALLY fun. It takes a simple word game and turns it into a maddening (positive) puzzle - I have happily stared at a given turn for like 10 minutes just to figure out how to optimize whatever word I'm picking. The different upsides and downsides you can apply to your letters are consistently meaningful (that is, the game feels well balanced), the art is silly and cute, and the structure of the run even requires your skill to optimize your path, which I think is really clever. The UI feels nice and the tutorial is helpful. I accidentally stayed up super late playing this and can't wait to dig in further! It scratches some kind of itch I didn't know I had right between NYT Spelling Bee and Balatro.

This is a really cool concept for a game! Think Slay The Spire, but instead of a "deck" you have abilities/attacks that fall randomly on a keyboard and you spell out a word to use them. It's a fun puzzle to try and figure a word to use as many of the letters as possible, or to fit in other weird restrictions depending on the monster you're up against. The music is great as well and the characters have fun designs. A couple of suggestions for things I'd like to see: I found the "bouncing" animation before the keyboard drops into frame really jarring due to the contrast between the bright yellow box and the backgrounds, I know there is an option to reduce keyboard movements but I don't have any issue with the other animations, just that one. Additionally it'd be cool to see some different difficulty settings, like maybe an easy mode to help those who have a smaller vocabulary or just want a more casual experience without wracking their brain for obscure words (as much as I like doing that - the challenge is fun but makes it harder to recommend to those who aren't as into word games)

Pretty creative with gameplay mechanics and has a lot of ideas. I like how all of the different characters function.

Tomb of the Bloodletter is pretty fun ... until I encounter the enemy that locks away half my keyboard. I really want to like this game, however there are some design choices, or even oversights (?), that make my overall enjoyment suffer. Some of the combats are just plain unfun right now. These are things I believe can be ironed out, because the fundamentals are there and they are quite solid. I think my issues with the enemy I mentioned would be solved if the Magicks could only appear on the active half of your keyboard, for example. Being nerfed to less than half your power on turn 2 is VERY rough, especially if you encounter the boss version with 20 HP when you may only have one type of attack that does *1* damage. Not to mention that I think this enemy was not at all considered when making the Prophet. The lord should, in my opinion, not be able to demand you create a word that contains letters from both sides of the keyboard, when only one side is active.

I like this game quite a bit, although I agree with the points in some of the negative reviews. Positives: the art is charming and characterful, and *all* the mechanics serve to make the core gameplay interesting. You're trying to maximize some letters while avoiding others, and letter order often matters. This is the game, and it's fun! Negatives: Balance and variety are lacking. One magic is OP and can win runs by itself; a few enemies have a counter for it, but most don't. Other magics seem situational and underpowered. One character has special mechanics that don't allow the OP strat; he feels like a fun challenge mode. I think only one win with him is required for progression. After that, progression is just based on wins (with challenge modifiers, some of which do require changing tactics). Enemy variety is limited; different enemies share mechanics and can give you the same debuffs. It seems enemies can also appear anywhere in the three acts, which contributes to a lack of distinct identity for acts and enemies. But again, this criticism comes from a place of liking the game. I don't demand StS polish from a solo dev project asking $5 on sale. The dictionary could be improved; some short junk gets through, and some real words do not. Let me have susurrus!

Pretty good game overall. Thinking of words with the best combinations of letters is a good challenge.

This game has been truly refreshing. I feel like I have to use a different part of my brain to play this game, but it's also incredibly chill because you can take it at your own pace. It's not perfect, but there are some really cool ideas in here, and it gets way more right than it gets wrong. Also, try playing this with a friend in the room (or on discord)!