Wordlike is a roguelike word game—make words, tune your bag of letters, and collect power-ups to beat increasingly difficult levels.

If you've played Balatro, it's like Balatro with words 🔠

Wishlist on Steam

The full game on Steam will have more levels, more items, more achievements...more everything.


Controls

  • Mouse
  • Type to select letters
  • Backspace to remove
  • Enter to submit
  • Tab to shuffle

A word-based deckbuilder 

Beat each round by constructing words, and tune your bag of letters to optimize your draws.


Powerful 'Knick Knacks' 

Buy Knick Knacks to boost your score, enhance letters, and tune your bag. Discover unique word-based synergies based on parts of speech, letters, slang, and more.

Add your email to get an item guide: https://forms.gle/hb4ZSdzbJb51tTEM9


Face challenging bosses 

Encounter a variety of bosses that challenge you to make words without consonants, avoid nouns, or make words you've never made before.


Unique runs every time

Each play-through brings you a different bag of letters, unique bosses, and different sets of items that you can put together to make a strong build.


Various Tile enhancements

Create unique builds by employing a variety of different tiles and special abilities - leather, velvet, diamond, and more tiles await.

Join the newsletter (and get an Item Guide)

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Join the Discord

https://discord.com/invite/QK79ugjDZ8

Updated 26 days ago
StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5
Rating
Rated 4.4 out of 5 stars
(14 total ratings)
AuthorRoadtrip Games
GenrePuzzle
Made withUnity
TagsDeck Building, Roguelike, Singleplayer, Turn-based, Word game

Development log

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Comments

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(1 edit)

Wordlike v0.14 is here!

Major changes to the meta this week! Brand new Shop, a handful of new Knick-Knacks, buffs to Pool Balls and several events, and a bunch of bug fixes to make the whole experience smoother.

  • New Events:
    • 🪆 Faceless Doll: Take it if you're ready to play exclusively Blanks, but don't break your promise...
    • ✍️ Pool Ball Contract: Sign it and your Pool Ball packs will always contain your most played word length.
  • New Knick-Knacks:
    • 💳 Credit Card: Gains +2 points for every dollar you spend.
    • 👛 Purse: +1 multiplier for every dollar you have.
    • ⌨️ Blank Keyboard: x3 multiplier for a word that's all blanks.
    • 🏞️ Unused Film: +5 multiplier for every used blank.
    • 🪄 Magic Wand: Now permanently gain a blank when you make an 8-letter word.

✅ Improvements

  • New Shop: 3 slots for Knick-Knacks or Stickers and 2 slots for packs.

Wordlike v0.13 is here!

Say hello to Tile Packs, a bunch of new events, and a new board layout! Plus, Knick-Knacks get Traits to add even more variety from run to run!

  • New Events:
    • 🎁 Gift Exchange: Bring a Knick-Knack to share, and get a rarer one in return.
    • 🐖 Piggy Bank: Sell all of your Knick-Knacks and get triple their sell value.
    • 👨‍🍳 Tile Stew: Stir up your tiles; they’ll all get a random new letter and gain 2 points.
    • 4 new contracts.
  • Tile Packs: Get your selection of 4 exquisite tiles. 💠
  • Knick-Knack Traits: Knick-Knacks now have the possibility of being Digital, Antique, Shiny, or Radioactive, each with a unique boost. ☢️✨
(1 edit)

In several games I have found that the anchor knick-knack is not accurately counting the number of words that have ended in consonants.  It got stuck on +3 and at +0 in consecutive games.

Additionally, I've had a couple of games where the "vowels don't score points" or the "consonants don't score points" restrictions have not turned off after the turn/challenge when they were introduced.

Thanks for sharing these! Added them to the queue and should have them fixed soon

Wordlike v0.12 is here!

A huge number of new stickers and multiple new events join the fray! Manipulate your tiles, your mult, and even your board with a variety of new choices on every run.

  • 3 New Events:
    • Spin the Wheel: Risk losing all of your Knick-Knicks for a chance at a free Exceptional one.
    • Sticker Printer: Enjoy a few stickers on the house.
    • Promise: Get a lot of multiplier if you keep your promise, but expect misfortune if you break it...
  • 16 New Stickers: Log, Crown, Chalk, Ring, Jacket, Bust, Pillow, Screw, Sword, Stamp, Compass, Pool Cue, Mushroom, Eraser, Stamp, Coin, and an updated Chili.
  • Knick-Knack Packs: Purchase a case of Knick-Knicks for a broader selection.
  • Sticker Sheets: Purchase a sheet of stickers and choose three of your favorites!
(1 edit)

Wordlike v0.11 is here!

This update introduces a whole new dynamic with the addition of Events! Spot the question mark on the board and discover game-changing surprises!

  • Magic 8 Ball Event: Take a chance to upgrade one of your word lengths by multiple levels... or risk it being reset back to level 1.
  • Bank Contract Event: Sign a lucrative contract to earn more money each turn, but be prepared to pay the cost.
  • Red Pill, Blue Pill Event: Play it safe and reset the board, or take a bold risk and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
(1 edit)

Wordlike v0.10 is here!

It's all about Tile Enhancements this week with 6 new additions to join the existing Wooden and Marble enhancements

  • Leather Tiles: Gains points the more you use it
  • Gold Tiles: Get some $ every time you play it
  • Velvet Tiles: Adjacent tiles to this one get more points 
  • Blackboard Tiles: Converts the tile into a blank 
  • Rust Tiles: x2 mult, but the tile gets destroyed if not used. 
  • Diamond Tiles: More mult, but the letter on the tile changes with every draw


(1 edit) (+2)

Wordlike v0.9 is out!

  • Blanks Button: Start each round with 4 blanks. No more discarding hands! Use your blanks wisely.
  • Pool Case: Choosepool balls from a case with multiple options to upgrade points and multipliers for various word lengths.
  • Crystal Ball: Discover the 'Exceptional' Knick Knack that randomly enhances a tile for every word played.

(+1)

(+2)

Lol, should this be an easter egg word?

(+2)

Wordlike v0.8 is out!

  • 10 new Knick Knacks: Check out Piano, Houseplant, Axe, and more!
  • Rarity: Ordinary, Special, and Exceptional Knick Knacks
  • Keyboard only: You can now play the entire game on keyboard! Type every word you play
(1 edit) (+2)

Wordlike v0.7 is out!

  • The New Board: A new level design based on 'Boards' where you build your path from square to square
  • Revamped Game UI: A brand new game UI for playing words and going up against bosses each round
  • Knick Knacks: Everything comes down to the right knick knacks, so choose wisely whenever you win a round!

It seems that the adjustments for sound/music/effects do not change anything about the volume of the game. 

Weird... noticing it's a bit extreme - will take a look. Maybe something about middle states not changing it enough

Okay, should be working now!

Thank you!

(-2)

Not a fan of the new iteration. At least on the old version you had a chance to win all the levels, but not on this one. Bummer. I guess I'm done. 

Oh no! Well there are some good paths to beating it, but see how it feels more frustrating. Tweaking the difficulty levels this week along with some other updates that should help

(2 edits) (+2)

Super fun! I did run into a lil bug where you can move around shop items with click and drag. Also going into settings loses the game. (I imagine you know about these but just in case). Such a great idea. Wishlisted on steam :) Lemme get that endless mode

edit: (sorry if this is overwhelming, just think this is a great game and want to help by offering bugs) I also ran into a bug where I played a single blank tile to try and delete it with the Voucher modifier and the game is kind of frozen. I can still click around, but nothing really happens and I can't move tiles in or out of the play area.

(+1)

Thanks! This is super helpful! Caught the settings one and will have a fix up soon. Taking  a look through the others

(+2)

Pretty fun, won first try using 3 letter word, noun, vowel build. One annoying thing is that if I didn't buy the letters in the store, the next time I was in the store it would always be the same letters. So I just had K and Q in my store the whole game because I never felt the need to take them. Especially since such OP cards like the Watermelon and Funnel exist.

Niice! Yeah great point on shop variability. Want to bring in several new rotations of items and also reroll options

(+2)

Some power ups feel very powerful. I easily beat the game after I got two mult increasing power ups, one for words ending in a vowel and one for nouns. After a few rounds I was getting more than a thousand points for basic words.

Yeah, I'd say you're landing on the couple existing powerful builds in here so far. Working on structuring the challenges and addition of new items to make those builds not guarantee while populating new builds

(1 edit) (+1)

I got a powerup that sounded like "+2 for every tile less than 14 in your bag", but it didn't seem to do anything. Did I misunderstand what it does, or is it buggy?

This is the microchip! So to trigger it, you need to get less than 14 tiles your bag by using the trash can consumable to delete tiles. As you delete more tiles, this should power up

I see, I read it as "every tile with a score less than 14", not "fewer than 14 tiles".

Ah I see. Yeah, need to make this one clearer

(+2)

Really enjoyed this! :) Probably my favourite Balatro clone out there.

Polish wise I'd like a way to disable the music/sound effects, and balancing probably a little on the easy side, but definitely a game I'd love to play more. Hell I'd probably pay for it if it came out on Steam/other systems.

Thanks for checking it out! Yeah, need to add the screens/menus to control the basics still. Should be up soon. And yeah +1 on the difficulty. Super cool to hear - excited to get this on Steam eventually. In the meantime, want to just get this feeling pretty great right here

(+2)

Great game! I'd definitely like more challenge - getting an early umbrella makes it very hard to lose, for instance. I also feel there's not quite enough incentive to play for the longer words - the 7s and 8s are super fun to come up with and they don't feel like they're "a deck" as it were. But the idea is really fun!

Thanks! Yeah completely agree on the challenge increase. I'd say that and new builds of items are super high on the priority list. Yeah for longer words, was thinking about the current implementation of reference and pool balls as the mechanic to improve them, but still feels way to inconsistent to play any strong strat around longer words. Should be sharing some stuff soon that will be cool here

(+2)

Cool game! I would like to get a bonus score so I can see how high my score was at the end because I beat the game without ever using any discards, and always winning after only using 2 words. Because I had the thing have gives mult for each vowel and the funnel that makes everything a vowel.

Nice job beating it without any discards! Vowel build is strong. Yeah good request. Working on improving the overall leveling architecture so we can capture a clearer sense of progression and achievement

(+2)

Very fun! Can you rearrange the items after you’ve bought them? Dragging didn’t work on iPad, but I’m not sure if it’s even possible

(1 edit)

Glad you liked it! Not yet, but coming soon

(+4)

I've played the game twice now and got stuck here both times. The "W" tile gets stuck in the playing area and it won't let me play any more words.

Thanks for catching! That's a frustrating one. Taking a look

I've been getting that consistently as well, it seems to happen starting at level 5 or so.

(+2)

I've noticed this over all of my runs, but aren't vowels op? With the relic that considers all letters vowels and the relic that permanently gains +2 multi for each word ending in a vowel, you can play low-point words like an (2 points) to get a huge multiplier from the mustache relic (permanent multiplier). Add this with the relic doubling the value of all vowels, and other vowel-oriented relics, and you quickly get an op build that gets 800 points on 2-letter words, and I got 5.5k on pintos. on the final level. Aside from that, great game. 

Ooh nice build! Yeah, added a specific build around vowels like that and it's strong for sure. As more items get added in the coming days, think it'll be hard to pull that off, but should be some other good ones

(+3)

Really great concept :D. I like the artifact that allows you to use slang. I think you can expand on that concept, maybe one for names, locations(cities countries etc.), gamer acronyms (ttk,brb,dot,aoe etc).  I think making them more specific and but more rewarding would be satisfying. for example a modifier that makes animals give mult, so (dog, cat snake etc.), colors, numbers; you get the idea. You could also think about adding permanent upgrades like changing the hand itself, either decreasing or increasing. Anyways, I think you could make something that hits a very similar spot to balatro also i feel like Northern Lion would go crazy for this game. good luck

Thanks! Awesome that you liked the concept!

Really like the idea of expanding the use of definitions-based items by making them more specific. Part of the challenge is balancing that with the amount of control you can exert on reliably creating a matching word (e.g. repeatedly making animals if you have a mult for animals). 

+1 on hand changing upgrades as well.

Excited to be adding these in the coming days/weeks

(+3)

Something seems to be wrong with your wordlist, because it's labeling things that are clearly adjectives as "adverb".  (In fact it's never labeling anything as "adjective", which was a shock when I bought something that gave me a bonus for adjectives.)

Oh weird - seeing that. Thanks for catching + sharing! Will patch

This should be fixed now!