It's a perfect mix, I think. Jen and I have been playing it non-stop since we got it and we're finding careful deckbuilding is definitely the name of the game. You do benefit from longer words, insofar as they'll *generally* give you more scoring opportunies (each card/letter scores in some way), but making smart use of your acquired cards is usually your main priority.Kong Wen wrote: ↑26 Oct 2018 14:21Wishlisting this without knowing much else about it. How much Scrabble is it (i.e. how much is it just about spelling words)?VictorViper wrote: ↑22 Oct 2018 22:31 This will get reposted in the Ascension thread for targeted Merlin notification, but as a heads up, a card game called Hardback I've been eyeing for months now is available digitally. This is the second game in this series from Fowers Games (the earlier release was called Paperback), and it's a deckbuilder cum word game - and it's excellent.
No monsters, characters, etc. Just pure spelling action with a traditional deckbuilding mechanic. Cross-platform online play too! $6.50 and worth every penny, though watch for sales otherwise.
Because the cards are just letters, it takes a bit of additional effort to learn the quirks and strengths of the different "factions" (genres, in Hardback), but it really gets fun once you start to understand how best to pick and play your cards.
As far as the actual spelling - it is all you do. Each turn you draw 5 cards and must spell a word of at least 3 letters. You may make any card wild but that negates its points benefit. As the game progresses you buy cards and/or ink. Ink allows you to draw more cards - these cannot be made wild. Bought cards have special abilities and often pay bigger rewards than their equivalent generic versions. That's the core loop, and it's a pretty good one.
