Words of Yendor

The game started off great, I love mixing word minigames with an RPG framework, but some of the minigames are not very fun to engage with and despite receiving frequent criticisms about them, the developer doesn't seem interested in changing their core design. I ended up refunding it, so I can't recommend it. EDIT: The developer takes criticism so poorly that they're now moving the goalposts. No one expected a day one overhaul of game systems, but the conversations in their own community hub show how stubborn they are with their "vision" versus what people consider fun.

[h2]There's not enough good word games on Steam so I was excited to see if this one was any good, and I ended up really enjoying it, once I understood all the concepts behind it. [/h2] Words of Yendor is a mishmash of grid based word conundrums, RPG elements, and a few tactical choices that join together to make a very enjoyable experience. [h2] Gameplay [/h2] The game plays out like a choose your own adventure where you have to make decisions on which path to follow from the selections at hand. To reveal the choices you need to scout the situations, and are thrown into a word challenge against an opponent, making words from a grid of letters. Sometimes, these are duels to the death, and sometimes these are matters of honour and you must only severely wound them to win the argument (like you do). I actually found the duels to the death a lot easier as you just try and get the highest score possible, but in the duels of honour you have to be careful not to kill them, as you will pick up negative attributes which can effect your game later down the road. This means that you have to try and work out what score you need to wound them enough so they surrender, but not enough to kill them. I found it a little confusing what score I actually needed to do this, as you have a defence score and a health score which combine, but there seem to be other factors too which I didn't quite understand, so I did end up killing them rather than scaring them away. Oops. https://youtu.be/ryENmZIjtME There are items to collect along the way, or advantages you can buy from merchants, that can help you in battle, like word extenders, double score tiles, revealing the highest word score available, health boosters, or even delivering a sucker punch to your opponent without reply. To obtain some of these things you can steal from museums and sell the artifacts to merchants in exchange for goodies, or win items in duels and situations. Now and again, choices will be limited to one and may involve a dangerous situation where you have to guess a word in so many tries, basically a game of Hangman. If you run out of tries, each wrong guess loses you health, and a win rewards you with experience, puzzle pieces, and gold. Along the way certain situations will award you with either white or black points. When you earn enough points you may be able to travel to the mysterious white steam lands or black smoke lands on some kind of magical ship. The long and short of it is that you will earn a heap of gold, experience, and puzzle pieces, so it is always worth taking that voyage if you can, and is crucial when attempting a longer run. Your trek doesn't take very long, and will depend on how many situations you want to scout out. You could just choose the first option and not reveal any others but you will soon learn that to survive the endgame you need as much gold, experience, and as many puzzle pieces as possible. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3153588271 [h2] Endgame [/h2] At the end of your journey you will meet a powerful foe, a bit like a word game boss, who will have stronger words and be able to hurt you in battle. At the start of the fight you can pick which handicaps you want to place on the battle, for example, you can opt for half health points in exchange for double rewards at the end. It puts you at an immediate disadvantage, but if you do well in your battle and have a few health potions to use, then it can be rewarding. After defeating the boss, you are tasked to find out the words of Yendor which involves moving letters around the grid to make them spell out significant words which you need to work out. Each movement loses you experience and puzzle pieces, and this is why it is so important to accumulate these in your journey as they soon run out in the last level, causing you health loss after each subsequent move, and it is by far the most difficult section of the game. The grid follows a Mastermind type system where letters in the correct row but in the wrong order are a certain colour, and letters in the correct position are green. There are added difficulties, with certain letters being chained and not movable, which means you have to be careful how you plan your moves as you can find yourself in a dead end and have to go all the way around again meaning almost certain death. Items such as teleports can be used to swap letters instantly, which can be a life saver, but they are difficult to find on your journey, and there are equalisers too that can alter the amount of health lost from each move. The amount of words of Yendor you need to find depends on your choice at the beginning. You can set the game up as you want with five different characters to choose from, each with their own attributes, and starting items, and you can pick between three and twelve words of Yendor. This basically dictates how many rounds you will need to complete before successfully completing your journey. [h1]🍳Conclusion🍳[/h1] [quote][h2][b] Words of Yendor is a really interesting word game that should keep you coming back for more with many ways to tailor your game experience, before and during your quest. Some of the story writing is actually rather good, although you will begin to notice familiar situations as you play more, and it is roughly the same experience on each turn although the end game keeps getting more difficult. Overall, if you enjoy word games this is definitely one you should check out. 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Words of Yendor offers a fresh take on well-known word puzzles and places it in an intriguing steampunk world. The learning curve is definitely more steep than your average world puzzle, and the rougelike mechanics are sometimes unforgiving but it certainly makes winning a match more rewarding. It's a solid choice for someone looking for a more challenging word puzzle experience.

Words of Yendor has destroyed me. Every. Time. Now, I know what you're thinking. This game must be hard. Well, you're right! It is. It's a roguelike at heart, wrapped in a cunning word game exterior. I've played multiple runs, getting so far as to the fourth settlement in a five settlement run, and every single time I've died before getting to the end and obtaining a word of Yendor. Perhaps they are meant to be savored, rolled around in the mouth, kind of like one of those candies? Oh what were they called.... In any event, getting your hands on one of these rare Yendor truffles is going to take some doing. Don't buy this game if you think you're getting an easy-peasy word game made for kids, or something that you use to mindlessly idle away your time. No. You're going to have to think far more than that. Bierce Souls, anybody? *First Edit* After playing the game for some time, I'd like to throw in a couple pieces of feedback to the developer regarding the game. In no particular order: 1.) The icons on the left hand side of the screen for your consumables feel a bit counter-intuitive. Normally any icons one sees, especially on computers, that are grayed out, feel as though they are not usable. They don't make a clear impression on how to be used; and I have seen at least one review where the player didn't notice they even had items in their possession to use. How about changing the icons for these consumables to have a little color to them so they're easier to notice? 2.) The Showdowns have killed several of my good runs where I probably could have finished a winning run if I had a bit more health, or if the cost of swapping was less. Certain character build presets from the beginning of the game (I think there are 5) feel a bit unbalanced and for the 15 or so runs I've played (none of which I've won, I might add) it feels like there is always one specific category I'm lacking in that prevents me from winning---and more often than not, there's no way to obtain these items I need to cover myself. Merchants have a variable selection, and I've found on a few occasions that if I need more health because my preset character has a lower HP value, I can't seem to find any health anywhere else to make up for it. 3.) Because of number 2, there are some runs that are literally just unwinnable, no matter what you do, and there is no way to get around it. If I continue to play the game for the next few hours and cannot win a standard run (let's say a 5 letter length WOY,) I'm going to have to change my rating to "not recommended." While I understand having a roguelike has its moments of difficulty, this game is scaled and balanced in such a way that it actively tries to kill you based on pure RNG. 4.) When entering into a duel, if you risk 25% of your health and your health is an odd number (say 13,) it automatically rounds up and ends up taking more than 25 percent, up to 33% and is not an accurate representation of how much health you're wagering. Could you perhaps change the formula so that it rounds down instead of up? This is another area where it feels as though the game is purposefully trying to get you to lose.

I really like this game. So much fun, exciting word puzzle, hangman, which exercises your brain in the process. Nice graphic and imaginative customization, so you can choose what your character looks like. The steampunk story that runs in the background is combining the usability of modern technology with the aesthetics and philosophy of the Victorian era. And the game soundtracks are very atmospheric! You could choose a strategy: take risks or proceed with consideration, it depends on your decision. I recommend it to everyone who likes puzzle games.

Did you enjoy Wordle or Scrabble? Well, you are in luck, because Words of Yendor is a similar word puzzle, but it's an ACTUAL GAME instead of that casual fil.. stuff. It throws in some RPG elements, has some nice story fluff. Multiple kinds of word puzzles. Little bit of steampunk aesthetics, hand drawn graphics. soothing music. All the indie game goodness. As for the negatives: There might be too much objects to collect that will not have any real effect on your playthrough due to the random nature of encounters. During my 10+ hours of gameplay, it crashed once, but the autosave system works perfectly, so I did not lose any progress. In summary, "Words of Yendor" is a highly recommended title for fans of word puzzles seeking a deeper and more aesthetically rich experience. It's a thoughtful blend of challenge, story, and style that's sure to captivate.

A great combination of classic word games with some rogue-like elements, and I also really like the world-building and imagery. I'd never heard of Ambrose Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary" before, but the use of it adds real character to the game! On the downside, some of the mechanics could be a bit clearer - I didn't realise that you get free teleport-swaps in showdowns for completing words when I played the demo, but this is pretty important! Also, the naming of "experience" and "clues" somewhat obscures their primary use as a currency for the showdown puzzles. Oh, and you can add your own words to the dictionary, which is a nice option for any word game.

Good fun. Haven't encountered any huge bugs or immediate exploits in my first playthrough. Minor gripe that it doesn't remember your name or have a custom default, so my ADHD means I'm just "Player" in every run.

There's just too much going on in this. Rather than having a single, refined word game to engage with, you instead end up with multiple (often confusing) mini games chained together. Few mechanics carry over between the mini games, and there is no tutorial to speak of. Every mechanic and mini game is just tossed in from the jump, and the help button simply adds more cognitive overhead by having you follow 10-15 explanation steps. Even the smallest of mechanics requires a novella-sized explanation. A simple case of trying to create depth thru needless complexity and mechanic bloat. It's 10% a word game, and 90% reading lengthy rules and deciphering a messy interface. Refund requested.

Can become quite addictive as you try to fight yourself through the enemies finding the best words. If you enjoy scrabble, hangman or similar games this is good fun and the story makes it more enjoyable than the plain old word games. Don't be deterred by the complexity and steeper learning curve, you can start playing it and you pick up the finer details as you play it multiple times.