Back in 2024, Balatro made big waves in the indie roguelike space, offering a relatively simple but incredibly addictive take on the age-old game of poker. After selling millions of copies, it’s now spun off its own sort of sub-genre inspired by its mechanics, and one such game is called Beyond Words from MindFuel Games, a new studio comprising GoldenEye and TimeSplitters veterans Steve Ellis and David Doak.
Basically, this is Scrabble, but if it had Balatro’s rules, rapid-fire pace, and gameplay loop. It’s not perfect, but it does expertly utilise some addictive mechanics to build on its wordy foundation, making it perfect for bookworms who want something that challenges both their lexical and strategic sensibilities.
It’s broken up into various themed levels, each of which follows a round-based roguelike structure wherein you’re given a minimum goal score to hit and a few opportunities to put together enough high-value words to get there, working with a supply of letter tiles randomly drawn from a bag. Each tile has a different point value, and longer words offer progressively higher multipliers. Playing strictly within these rules only gets you so far, however, and this is where some roguelike mechanics come in.
Based on your performance each round, you’re given money to spend in a store featuring a random rotating selection of purchasable upgrades that can fudge the rules a bit more in your favour. You can do things like ‘level up’ the point value and multiplier for all three-letter words, or gain a buff that permanently doubles the value of every vowel you use. Yet, you have to do your best with what you’re given; sometimes the shop doesn’t have great stuff to choose from, but you can usually cobble together a decent ‘build’ to plan moves around.
This all comes together in a game that feels constantly rewarding, even when you fall short of a goal. Even on the same level, you’ll never play the same run twice, and there’s a thrilling sense of forward momentum as you hone in a nice build, rack up points, and nail some seven or eight-letter words on the board. It’s addictive in all the best ways.
Yet, it can sometimes feel a bit too derivative. When details like a rainbow-coloured booster card offers the same buff as a rainbow Joker in Balatro, it’s hard to ignore how much it copies. This in mind, it would’ve been nice to see MindFuel do more to expand upon the mechanics of its inspiration.
Beyond Words, then, is an enjoyable roguelike experience that smartly mixes in chance mechanics and run-based gameplay with a foundation that challenges your vocabulary. Though it feels notably derivative, it ultimately does a good enough job of executing on the mechanics it apes to stand on its own two feet. I’d suggest you pick it up – there’s lots to dive into in this one.
