Beyond Words

Beyond Words is a roguelike deckbuilding game about getting high scores on Scrabble-like boards. It combines the classic word-spelling gameplay of Scrabble with the exponential scoring of Balatro. A wide variety of creatively designed boards keep the game interesting.

The basic gameplay will be familiar to any Scrabble player: you have a bag of letters, you draw seven of them, and you must play them on a board to spell words, with each successive word connecting to a word that was already played. Some squares on the board add upgrades to the letters that are played there. Your bag of letters is small, and when it runs out, it refills with the same letters, including any upgrades they’ve gained.

The scoring and game progression are drawn from Balatro. Each round, you can play up to five words to beat a target score that increases exponentially. A word’s total score is a base point value times a multiplier. Each letter tile has a point value, and there’s an additional score and multiplier based on the length of the word, plus a 100-point bonus if you use all your tiles. There are nine rounds total, and every third round is a boss level with an additional restriction.

After every round, you visit a shop where you can buy various upgrades. These include extra tiles to add to your bag, boost cards that you can spend to raise the value of different word lengths, and permanent effects like lowering the shop prices. You can also buy power cards, which are the equivalent of Balatro’s jokers. They have a variety of powers, ranging from extra points to adding new upgrade squares to the board. A successful strategy depends on having an effective combination of power cards.

There are various board layouts to unlock, each with its own set of starting letters and sometimes its own custom rules. The board layout can change your strategy drastically. For instance, some boards are broken into several different small areas, while others come with a predefined set of jokers that can’t be removed. The boards in Beyond Words fulfill the same role as the decks in Balatro and the characters in Slay the Spire. With dozens of boards to try, there’s enough material to keep you busy for many playthroughs.

This description was written by Gwen C. Katz.