What if Scrabble was an RPG, and every word you played was a punch in the face?
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What if Scrabble was an RPG, and every word you played was a punch in the face?
That’s Word Wonders: The Tower of Babel.
You’re building words on a grid to beat up fantasy weirdos guarding each floor. Genies, goblins, dragon-adjacent problems. Make a good word, they explode in colourful flashes and lose a chunk of HP. It’s petty and satisfying.
And it’s not just “win the board.” It’s about winning each fight, clearing the floor, levelling up, unlocking boosts, equipping artifacts, mixing potions, repeat. It’s basically vocabulary violence with a progression loop.
Steam calls it “casual,” which is like calling a slot machine “a light hobby.” If they’d pitched it as a word-puzzle RPG, more people would’ve clocked what it actually is.
I’ve owned it for 10 years. Still happy it’s in my library.
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What if Scrabble was an RPG, and every word you played was a punch in the face?
That’s Word Wonders: The Tower of Babel.
You’re building words on a grid to beat up fantasy weirdos guarding each floor. Genies, goblins, dragon-adjacent problems. Make a good word, they explode in colourful flashes and lose a chunk of HP. It’s petty and satisfying.
And it’s not just “win the board.” It’s about winning each fight, clearing the floor, levelling up, unlocking boosts, equipping artifacts, mixing potions, repeat. It’s basically vocabulary violence with a progression loop.
Steam calls it “casual,” which is like calling a slot machine “a light hobby.” If they’d pitched it as a word-puzzle RPG, more people would’ve clocked what it actually is.
I’ve owned it for 10 years. Still happy it’s in my library.
@atomicpoet did they take this idea from Legend of Koizumi, where Mahjong tournaments inflict pain to the losers?
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@atomicpoet did they take this idea from Legend of Koizumi, where Mahjong tournaments inflict pain to the losers?
Oblomov First I’ve ever heard of that.
