Watchword

I really like word games, and I've enjoyed Balatro, so when I saw this, I tried the demo. The demo crashed several times, but I thought 'Eh, it's the demo, surely the full game would be fixed, they might not have updated the demo since it came out.' I was wrong. In the 40 minutes I've played it, it has crashed 4 times. I can not continue my game. I'm on the first one. halfway through a run (6 out of 12), and every time I try to submit my board, it crashes. This isn't the only way it has crashed, it can crash when you choose to start a run (it did this a lot in the demo. It only did it once in this version, so I thought it was just a hiccup... oof.) as well. This makes this pretty much unplayable. This isn't even isolated, there's a thread on the discussions about it crashing, and while it's supposedly 'less often', the fact it's still happening at all is fairly egregious. I'm really disappointed, at both the devs and myself. I shouldn't have gotten a game where the demo gave me red flags.

this game is REALLY short. Barely any difficulty scaling, and the bags don't affect playstyle enough to add meaningful replayability. The experience is fun, but I really want a fleshed-out sequel; this feels more like a proof of concept than the full thing. I give it a B-minus; i enjoyed the few runs I got in before running out of content, but I wanted so much more.

Crossword Balatro with great art and good music. You CAN use swear words (but not slurs) and the cycle of "bosses" keeps each run interesting.

hi -- i loved this demo but the game will not even run without crashing, and the developer hasn't done anything to support it or respond to anyone in months. DO NOT BUY, especially for fourteen u.s. doll arse?

Good game

I got to play the game (while only under mild pressure from the devs) at a convention in October! They were incredibly gracious and let me play until I lost at Trial 10 after a full hour. It works great on Steam Deck (the game says it has "partial" touch support but I've found trackpads to be nearly flawless.) Overall I appreciate how it makes me think a little more carefully than I would in other similar games, and the game looks and sounds amazing. The best way to describe it ends up being "Balatro but Scrabble instead of Poker", however it definitely uses its composite elements in extremely unique ways.