Beyond Words Review

Have you ever found yourself playing Scrabble and started thinking about how cool it would be to mix it with multiplier cards like the ones you find in Balatro? Well, do I have the game for you! Beyond Words is developed by MindFuel Games, with developers that worked on GoldenEye 007 and TimeSplitters, and published by PQube. This title is a roguelike, deckbuilding word game, which isn’t the kind of title you would expect this developer to release.

The first thing you need to do is play the tutorial. Even though this looks like Scrabble, there is a lot more going on here. You have seven tiles on your rack to create words that you place on the board, including two different types of wild pieces: one that lets you select any letter you want, and the other where you select a vowel you want to use. The word you play can be as short as two letters and can be abbreviations, names, proper nouns, or acronyms; you just have to place it where the star is on the board.

Your first task is to score at least 200 points in only 10 moves. Once you complete this, you will be rewarded with 15 gold coins. You aren’t on your own to figure out what to do; you have a wise owl that shows you the ropes, so you know how to maximise the number of points you acquire. Like Scrabble, you earn the points shown on each of the tiles you use. Then, each word that you place has a base score that is determined by its length; it is then multiplied by a base multiplier to get your point total.

If you don't like some of the tiles on your rack, you have the option to discard them to draw new ones. I have had a few rounds where I only had consonants and no vowels, so it was almost impossible to make words, especially if you weren’t building off an existing one. There is a limit on how many times you can do this, though; you can’t clear your whole rack.

Once you get the required number of points, that round is over, and you see your average move score, along with how many points you earned from unused moves and unused discards, as well as a reward for completing your goal. Each of these scores gives you gold coins.

This currency is very important, as you will spend it at the shop to purchase cards that will help increase your score. There are Power Cards that give you multipliers, like Four Good Times, which is a four-times multiplier, and Booster Cards that do things like Trio, which upgrades three-letter words from level one to level two; these are destroyed as soon as they are played. You can sell the cards that you have at any point if you want to make room for better ones or if you need the extra gold.

Every third round that you play is a Boss Level. These are more difficult, as they have a special restriction that may throw a wrench in your strategy. The first one you encounter means the letters O, W, L, or S don't score you points, and any tile enhancements you have from cards are disabled. Like the other rounds, you are restricted to a limited number of turns to get the required number of points.

If you fail to get the required score to complete that round, your run is over. The good news is that you unlock new cards that will be available to purchase in the shop at some point. You can retry the challenge, but you won’t have your multiplier cards from before. However, the clear requirement goes back down to 500, since you are at the starting boss stage. As you progress, each boss battle requires a higher score to be victorious: the second is up to 1,500 points, the third 5,000, the fourth 10,000, and it keeps increasing as you progress. If you happen to get all the way to boss round five, you will need to score at least 1,000,000 in only five moves! This seems insane; you will definitely need to have some great multiplier cards to make this happen.

As you progress, you will play on game boards that are uniquely shaped and not your traditional square. Bento Box is one of the most challenging, as the play area is divided into small chunks of board. The tiny areas get cramped, and you run out of room to place and create new words, so your play area is very restricted. There is even one shaped like a train where you are timed and need to play a word before the timer runs out.

The controls are incredibly responsive and easy to use, even when playing with a controller. The board is set up like a grid, so you move around it one square at a time. When you are on the location where you want to place a tile piece, hit the bottom face button. If you change your mind or place a tile in the wrong spot, you can undo it and not just the last tile you placed, but as far back as you want. When placing pieces, you can create the word in any order you wish. Want to place the letters of your word starting at the end? Go for it. The word isn’t scored until it is complete.

Beyond Words feels like a mash-up of Scrabble and Balatro, where you want to buy the right cards to maximise your multiplier and score big. It is incredibly addictive and keeps you wanting to try one more round. It is a lot more challenging than either of those games, as much of your score is based on the words you manage to create and with the cards you picked up. If you aren’t a fan of word-creation games, you will probably get incredibly frustrated here. Even if you do like puzzle games like that, there is a lot of strategy here, and if you don’t get good cards, it will be hard to reach the required scores for the later rounds.