Word95

TL;DR: Do not buy this game unless you're prepared to practically copy an entire dictionary for achievements. The developer also has a questionable take on neurodivergence as a "reward" for beating the game. I originally bought this game because I thought it would be fun to earn points by typing random words and building a dictionary. You have to play minigames to earn currency, which is then used to purchase the letters needed to create words. Unfortunately, this requires you to be very hands-on with the minigames, because while you do earn some passive currency over time, the amount is abysmal until you've upgraded your library to level five. The minigames become repetitive very quickly, and the gameplay loop turns into: play a minigame, buy letters, add a few words to your dictionary, realize you need more currency, then repeat. Over and over. Once you've spent hours doing this and slowly upgraded your library enough to generate a substantial amount of passive currency, it's finally time to focus on building your dictionary. For the final level, you need to create 100 words for every letter of the alphabet. Some letters are easy enough, but finding 100 words that start with "X" is a task in itself. I ended up searching through multiple websites trying to find words the game would actually accept, and even then it rejected many legitimate entries. After all of that, I upgraded the library to its final level and "beat" the game. My reward was a piece of paper with bad handwriting that says, "You might be autistic," alongside a button labeled "HELL YEAH!" and an achievement called "Spectrum." As someone who is neurodivergent, I found this incredibly tone-deaf. I know the creator didn't intend for it to come off this way, but there are plenty of neurotypical gamers who would play a game like this simply because they find it relaxing or enjoy achievement hunting. Treating someone's willingness to engage with a repetitive gameplay loop as evidence that they "might be autistic" doesn't feel like representation. It feels like reducing autism to a collection of internet stereotypes. Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental condition, not a quirky personality label you earn after spending enough time grinding a game. To make matters worse, after finishing the game you're greeted with achievements that require finding 500 words for every letter of the alphabet, though some letters such as X are lowered to 300. At this point you're doing nothing but staring at a dictionary and hand copying words over. Maybe I'll come back and finish those achievements someday if I'm truly bored out of my mind, but as of writing this review, I'm taking a break.