Wordlike

Wordlike is a procedural turn-based dungeon crawler set in a world filled with letters! Use the environment to your advantage to spell words complex enough to beat the bad guys and progress to higher levels.

How to Play

Walk around the Tower and try to find the blue portals! When near an enemy (the red guys), hit the Spacebar to swap in and out of Attack Mode. Click on any enemy in the darkened squares to select them, then any combination of red letters to spell a word, and hit enter to attack! If the word is valid (making it green), your turn will end and the enemy will take damage. The fancier the word, the more damage you’ll deal! If you see a tile on the ground that you’d like to take with you, walk on top of it, enter Attack Mode and click the Swap button without having any letters selected to enter Swap Mode. Select one letter from your hand (the tiles at the bottom of the screen) and hit Enter to swap the tiles and end your turn.

Controls 

Movement

WASD Keys / Left Click (Tap) - Change the direction the character is facing

WASD Keys / Left Click (Hold) - Move the character to an adjacent space and end turn

Shift (Hold) / Double Left Click (Tap, then Hold) - Move around more quickly (Run/Sprint)

Left Click (Hand Button) / Spacebar - Enter Attack Mode

Attack Mode

Left Click (Hand Button) / Spacebar - Exit Attack Mode/Swap Mode

Left Click (Red Tiles) - Select a tile, turn it green and append its letter to the current word

Left Click (Green Tiles) - Deselect a tile, turn it red and remove its letter from the current word

Left Click (Enemy On Darkened Tile) - Select or deselect an enemy to target

Left Click (Swap Button) - Enter Swap Mode when no tiles are selected

Left Click (Submit Button) / Enter / Return - Attack enemy and end turn after spelling a valid (green) word

Left Click (Warp Tile) - Ascend to the next floor!

Backspace - Deselect the most recently selected letter.

Swap Mode

Controls are otherwise identical to Attack Mode.

Left Click (Swap Button) - Exit Swap Mode and return to Attack Mode, deselecting all tiles

Left Click (Red Tiles) - Select a tile and turn it green

Left Click (Green Tile) - Deselect a tile and turn it red

Left Click (Submit Button) / Enter - Swap a selected tile with the tile below the character and end turn

Other

Esc / Left Click (Pause Button) - Pause or un-pause the game.

F - While paused or on the main menu, change the display between windowed and exclusive fullscreen.

Known Issues

• Diagonal animations for the player are not handled properly if you are holding down extra movement keys.
• Diagonal idle sprites for the player will only show at the end of movements due to difficulty tracking the release of two keys at once.
• Sprint will sometimes end early while still holding down the shift key.
  
• Enemy animations are jittery when sprinting.
• Word field text overflows the box if it's above 12ish letters (good luck having that happen by accident!).
• High score entry lacks touch compatibility.

Planned Features 

Next Update (v0.4)

• Fix All Known Issues
• Intelligent Enemy States (AI, but not that kind of AI)
  • Sleeping: Enemies only notice you once you're right beside them.
  • Looking Around: Enemies notice you once you're nearby.
  • Roaming: Enemies travel around the map, searching for you.
• Improved Enemy Pathfinding
  • Enemies will hopefully dawdle a bit less and act a bit more predictably when approaching you.
• Finished Minimap
  • Know where you've been and where you have yet to go!
  • There is a debug minimap hidden in the current version...
• Fog of War
  • Things might get a bit more tense when you can't see around corners...
• General QoL, Bug Fixes & Optimization

Near Future (Next few versions)

• Tutorial Mode & (Improved) Tooltips
  • Wouldn't it be great if the game actually taught you how to play?
• Difficulty Selection
  • Appropriate challenges for literate initiates and cunning linguists alike!
• 8-Directional Movement For Enemies
  • Honestly, I just need sprites that can support those angles.
• More Enemy Types
  • If the game is like a chess board and the enemies resemble pawns, where are our knights and bishops?
• Riddle Rooms
  • Specially generated rooms that require you to solve a puzzle to progress!
• Word-Properties
  • Damage bonuses according to the meaning of words!
• Gear
  • Find treasure and get tools to help you fight monsters & explore!
• Permanent Progress
  • Level up & unlock abilities that carry over between playthroughs!
    
  • This is what makes it a roguelite instead of a roguelike.
• Audio/Visual Improvements

Near-ish Future (Pre-v1.0)

• Character Classes
  • Different core ways to play!
• Hub World
  • A peaceful place to explore and hang out between Tower treks!
• Story Mode
  • An actual plot, with danger & intrigue!
• Controller Support
  • I can't imagine why you would want to do this to yourself, but it's not all that hard to put in. so...
• Versus Mode?
  • A 2-player battle mode...?

Description of Function

(Scholarly stuff for nerds from the v0.1 build)

              Wordlike is intended to facilitate players learning how to spell words (as well as discover new ones) in the English language through the stimulating and challenging framework of a procedurally generated dungeon-crawling RPG. Our additional goal was to do away with the notion that a ‘serious game’ is at odds with being an enjoyable one - we wanted pedagogy and game design to work hand-in-hand. Players should not only practice and learn spelling more organically through the game’s feedback on their experimentation, but also be encouraged to think outside the box through creative limitations that arise due to the varying resources at their disposal. This should further their understanding of how words are structured and in turn improve their ability to infer about the value of where they intend to position their character as they travel through the game world to reach their objective.

            Given more development time, Wordlike will begin to incorporate the definitions of words, sentence structure, and possibly even etymology into the challenge presented to the player. It could potentially add more creative restrictions on which letters or resources to prioritize, further fostering intrinsic motivation to learn the English language within the framework of the game. If care is taken to ensure that the player is learning language in both abstract and practical capacities through challenges presented by the game, they should complete the game with transferable knowledge and skills applicable to their everyday life.

Credits

Jack Sparaga - Lead Developer & Designer

Paul Drotos - Composer, Audio Designer, Prototype Designer, Cool Guy™

Natalia Dimoski - Sprite Artist, Concept Artist