Words of Yendor

A Unique Fusion of RPG and Word Puzzles - A Must-Try Adventure! This is an absolute gem that seamlessly combines the thrill of RPG elements with the intellectual challenge of word puzzles, creating a gaming experience unlike any other I have seen before. This innovative fusion of genres brings a refreshing twist to the gaming landscape, and raising quickly to the list of indie games that keeps me around in PC gaming :) The gameplay revolves around engaging word challenges where players must construct X letter words from a set of letters or face hangman-style trials. This unique approach adds a layer of strategy and linguistic skill to traditional RPG mechanics. The battles are not just about brute strength, but also about mental agility, making each encounter a satisfying blend of wit and strategy. One of the standout features of "Word of Yendor" is the way victories reward players with perks, gold, and access to new locations. The progression system is intricately tied to the player's mastery of word puzzles, creating a sense of accomplishment with every successful battle. The game effectively incentivizes players to improve their word-building skills, making it a delightful journey of both character growth and linguistic prowess. The visuals and sound design complement the game's theme perfectly, creating an immersive world where players can explore diverse locations and encounter unique opponents. The attention to detail in the graphics adds to the overall charm of the game, making it visually appealing and engaging. Highly recommended for those seeking a fusion of puzzle-solving, exploration, and character progression in a single, cohesive package.

TLDR: If you like words games, I highly recommend the game. It's well done and fun. Words of Yendor - is a dungeon crawler with word games. The emphasis is on words, even though there are slay-the-spire-esque mechanics like visiting events, healing, shops, equipping artifacts, using consumables etc. However, the way it's all done is very unique. You begin with character creation: there are plenty of visual options for avatar, which is a nice touch. Then you choose one of several presets, which would allocate you a certain amount of consumables and artifacts, as well as define your starting dueling and scouting stats. Actually, even prior to that, you choose the length of a run (from 3 to 12) You go through a "dungeon" with several paths to choose, however only the first one is known, the other 1 or 2 are hidden and in order to find out the nature of these encounters, you need to scout them first. This is the first mini-game which consists of a collection of letters thrown into a grid and you need to construct a word by connecting letters horizontally or vertically. AI does that too (usually it's word is covered), then the word is revealed and if your scores higher, you succeed in scouting as well as receive some minor rewards. Then you have a classic hangman game. You get these from encounters and technically can complete a run without ever visiting one. The cool part is that it entails not only guessing singular words, but sometimes also whole parts of known poems and literary works. Nice! Another common type of encounter is a duel. There you are given letters to form words: the "harder" the letter, the higher is your score. Then you both deal damage to each other depending on the score. This was the most fun part of the game for me: you are basically constrained only by your vocabulary and coming up with the longest and strongest word is so enjoyable :) The whole run is segregated into different parts (towns), with a duel at the end of each one. Once you win the duel, you proceed to a showdown. Mystery words are written in a grid and the letters are moved around so you can't figure out right away what the words are. Each letter is colored depending on whether it's right where it should be, is in the right row OR column, or neither of those. You swap two letters at a time to arrange all the letters in proper spots, the limitations being the amount of experience and clues you have (which you get for winning scouting, duels or from encounters). Once those are depleted, you start losing health. Then - to the next town, with another duel at the end and another showdown, however the words you guessed in previous showdowns are already known, with a couple more added on top. Rinse and repeat, until you find all the words at showdown events - and this is the length of the run you choose at the start: from 3 words to 12. Might sound convoluted, but you get the grasp of things pretty quickly. However, this is not all: the game is very flavorful for "just" a word game: each encounter is accompanied with a short story, describing the happenings. And that is not all, I won't reveal everything but trust me: the developer has put quite some work in world building and this enhanced the experience quite a bit. Personally, I just love word games, but good flavor goes a long way. Despite that, it's not THAT deep and after a few runs I stopped reading most of things simply because I've already read all there is to it. One of the mechanics of the game is Bierce words: a predetermined list of words, which scores in duels are doubled. You don't know these words at the beginning and discovering new ones was a fun experience. These words are not random: they are separated into two lists according to their flavor and using any of these words in combat increases your allegiance score with one of two fractions, which might give you benefits in special events. However, the downside is that then you are being chased by an assassin: a hard duel, where an opponent will bombard you with strong words (sometimes bierce ones too). The game is filled with these little mechanics and interactions - enjoyed it a lot. From technical standpoint I had no complaints, which was a very pleasant surprise. Looking through reviews of various tabletop and word games on steam I frequently found that oftentimes the final product was very rough: things not working, interface being unintuitive, bugs etc. Don't know what it is about these types of games, that leads to such result. Maybe my sample was biased and I'm completely off on that. Well, Words of Yendor was a very smooth experience. Encountered zero bugs, the graphics is soft and pleasing to the eye, the music is appropriate and unobtrusive. Never was softlocked: all the puzzles were solvable. The only minor point is I think the artifacts in inventory should be graphically represented as icons, probably somewhere on top of screen similar to slay the spire. Even though you don't often carry many, I often forget which ones I have and for that you need to select your inventory and then click in the dropdown menu of a specific artifact, because of course you forget what they do at the beginning. You do have consumables visually represented as various gadgets, potions and such on the left of the screen and I think this helps with gameplay a lot: simply having that info in front of your eyes. This might be unnecessary, because artifacts do not carry as big of a role as in other dungeon crawlers, but still. As a full-achievements enjoyer, getting all achievements was natural and didn't take too much extra time on top of main gameplay. Completing each run length from 3 to 12 took about 20 hours. The other 5 I spent chasing the remaining few achievements and even though some of them include rng, due to the amount of places during a run where you can roll for them being relatively high, I didn't feel any frustration in getting those. The 100% process was organic and also made me play a bit more, which is nice since I enjoyed the game quite a lot. Also, I didn't know how to get the last three achievements, so I asked in the forums and the dev has provided a very detailed response, which helped me substantially: got two of the three right away during my first run after the response=) Words of Yendor is very well done for what it aims to do and I would certainly recommend it to any fan of word games. I certainly look forward to other games from the developer. Thank you and good luck ;)

Great game if you like word games like Scrabble, Bogle, Hangman, etc. without the pressure of a time limit. The later levels get quite difficult.

Words of Yendor is a roguelike word puzzle game wherein you tackle a variety of word puzzle minigames on your path to uncover the titular Word of Yendor. It's a satisfying game that I play regularly when I'm looking to spend an hour or so blazing through whatever words I can brainstorm on a moment's notice (aka my general writing strategy) and can't complain much. If you like word puzzles, you'll enjoy this. If there's one complaint, it's this: playthroughs bleed together. There are many options to get by, but they rarely require any thought. Challenges (ambushes, suspicious accidents, getting lost, duels, etc) are never preferable to safe or beneficial options. It very quickly becomes a game of blue = good, green = okay, red = bad. There are hints of recurring characters or a plot, but they're not particularly important. Additionally, there's a bell curve to difficulty wherein three-letter Words of Yendor are about as hard as twelve-letter Words of Yendor, because the 12 letter games allow you to amass so many resources. 6-10 letter words can be a bit more challenging, but it's run-dependent. Snowballing is in full effect so far as I've played, meaning that a strong start almost always means a strong end. Even with these considerations, however, it's a good game for any word-gamers. Highly recommended.

If you like roguelikes and word games then you will probably like this. It's cheap and fun for what it is. It's multiple word games in one tied together with rogue elements (no permanent progression). Cool aesthetic and lore (which I wasn't expecting from this type of game), though it's entirely optional if you don't want to engage with it. I do find it pretty easy though, and I don't consider myself a scrabble master or anything. The dev seems to listen to feedback and make improvements which is good. Which brings me to some small criticisms, some of which are definitely subjective but some of which could be easy fixes: 1. Character customisation doesn't save between runs which is odd, unless I missed the option for it but then it should be more obvious. 2. Some balance issues. Any class that starts with shorter scout/duel length or no composer upgrades is objectively worse, extra items don't make up for that. Lexicoscope is too strong and not fun because it just plays the game for you. 3. Some minor vagueness in mechanics/wording (eg. the graveyard event curses you, and the button says 'defend yourself to remove the curse' but it doesn't actually, you remain cursed even if you win). The skeleton key didn't work like I expected (discussed this with the developer). 4. Not every puzzle is created equal. I find showdown quite unfun and frustrating. Absolutely could just be a me problem but it seems un-intuitive and just feels like a 'dps check' of the resources you've built up rather than a puzzle you can overcome with skill. I've never actually lost here but it doesn't feel satisfying. I'm not sure what change would make it feel better. 5. Dictionary issues. Every word game is going to have some weird dictionary inclusions and exclusions but it's worth mentioning as this game has some odd ones for sure. If a really strange word appears in showdown especially it's really frustrating trying to figure it out. I was able to play 'video' but not 'videos', etc. The built in dictionary is a nice feature but often shows 'definition not available'. 6. Bierce words. This is, in my opinion, one of the worst aspects of the game. They are a random selection of words that are worth double points, which is fine except enemies can use them too. I think the only times I have actually died is when an enemy just happened to stumble onto a double value word and nuke me and there's just nothing you can realistically do about it. 7. The tutorial/first run is a LOT of info dumped on the player at once. I think for a more casual player, which I imagine word games might attract, it could be really off-putting. Dev if you're still reading this I am enjoying it quite a lot and I think a lot of these could be fixed with small tweaks. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to Dragon Riddler.

The game exceeded my expectations with its ingenious combination of word puzzles and rogue-like elements, set in a nicely crafted steampunk universe. The game's difficulty is tuned to offer a satisfying challenge, and the ability to add your own words to the dictionary is a nice touch as well. It's an engaging and rewarding experience for anyone looking for a word game that goes beyond the ordinary.

If you like word games, this is the best video game word game I've played. It is a bit intimidating at first, with many elements and game mechanics up front. The contextual tutorials are decent, and if you just keep playing, it makes sense pretty quickly. It's a roguelike with fresh runs each time, similar to Slay the Spire or FTL. I love the steampunk setting, and the music is exquisite. The art is perfect for the setting. I'm very glad I picked this up. Definitely worth $8 - 20 if you like word games!

What a lovely game. I mean, Victorian word game roguelike? Yes please. First off, it's very well-designed, in all ways. Visually, it looks exactly like it's supposed to, and it always feels very smooth and polished. The character customization is way more sophisticated than I was expecting, and there's also a randomize feature if you don't care about customizing your character. The gameplay is also fantastic. There are several different types of word games depending on the encounter type, with equipabales or consumables that can give you advantages. Obviously, there's an element of luck just in terms of what words and letters you're getting, and some encounters are unavoidable (so if you get an unavoidable assassin, it's generally either use a flashbang or RIP). But that's just part of the challenge. On your first playthrough, the game might feel a little overwhelming. There are so many mechanics being thrown at you, and it takes a playthrough or two to get used to it, but the game becomes pretty intuitive after that. Showdowns feel impossible at first but are actually pretty manageable once you get the hang of them. After you beat all the different word lengths, you can try to get the remaining achievements, which are surprisingly difficult. Mob Justice is nearly impossible to get without deliberate effort. But anyway, the game is fun, so I enjoyed playing it many, many times.

I've really come to appreciate the difficulty level presented in this game; it truly steps up the challenge as you play runs with longer and longer words. It does so honestly, with an AI that is good and not "cheaty"... Very important! Most word games will bore me by the 10-hour mark; Word of Yendor still has me hooked.

Although it's designed to be able to create writing prompts / launchpoints, I find it sufficiently engaging as a standalone experience that I haven't actually used that aspect.