Hi. I know "SDA" and "casual game" don't really sound right together, which is why I'm running this by the forums first of all. By all means shoot me down if this is (too) silly.
Bookworm Adventures is a PC game where you spell words (made from a pool of letters, yes, just like Scrabble) to defeat enemies. The game is divided into three books, each containing ten chapters, each containing between four and seven enemies. The game also pressures you into doing minigames for extra powerups but they're skippable.
Key talking points for speed are going to be spending your turn quickly (being able to see and choose a word immediately, not wasting any time on letter selection) and minimizing the overall number of turns (longer words deal more damage but are harder to see immediately and take a bit longer to input; worthwhile if you can manage it, though, because minimizing turns means minimizing the number of enemy animations). Strategy for each chapter is important too -- you generally want to spend the second half of a chapter building for a nine or ten-letter word so you can knock out the chapter boss is one turn (these one-hit kills save a ton of time), but that means restricting your letter options for the enemy or two before the boss, so depending on how well you can make do with a limited selection, those enemies might take two or three times as long and you'd nullify the time saved. Efficient use of the most important (and most limited) powerup, which doubles your damage for the next word only, would be necessary to prevent stalling at times when the RNG decides to stop giving you what you want.
So okay, two important questions you are probably considering. Would this run look all that different from, well, anyone else's run of the game (it is a casual game, right)? Well, I think so, since speed isn't valued in the game at all (it's turn-based) and that gives a normal player as much time as he needs to work out what he can spell, while a runner would have to start clicking letters as soon as his turn came up (giving him maybe a second, each time, to look at this bank of letters and come up with the longest word he can so he can start spelling it immediately). That brings up the next question: would it be any fun to watch? Being consistently -fast,- like speedrun fast, for even an entire chapter would be pretty punishingly hard, although simply being difficult for the runner doesn't make something enjoyable for a viewer, I suppose. Plus, with story scenes and all, it would run a bit long (estimating between three hours and 3:30), not the longest run on the site but not quick either.
Please weigh in, this is a game I'd actually like to see a run for but I'm aware that I could be the only one.
Bookworm Adventures is a PC game where you spell words (made from a pool of letters, yes, just like Scrabble) to defeat enemies. The game is divided into three books, each containing ten chapters, each containing between four and seven enemies. The game also pressures you into doing minigames for extra powerups but they're skippable.
Key talking points for speed are going to be spending your turn quickly (being able to see and choose a word immediately, not wasting any time on letter selection) and minimizing the overall number of turns (longer words deal more damage but are harder to see immediately and take a bit longer to input; worthwhile if you can manage it, though, because minimizing turns means minimizing the number of enemy animations). Strategy for each chapter is important too -- you generally want to spend the second half of a chapter building for a nine or ten-letter word so you can knock out the chapter boss is one turn (these one-hit kills save a ton of time), but that means restricting your letter options for the enemy or two before the boss, so depending on how well you can make do with a limited selection, those enemies might take two or three times as long and you'd nullify the time saved. Efficient use of the most important (and most limited) powerup, which doubles your damage for the next word only, would be necessary to prevent stalling at times when the RNG decides to stop giving you what you want.
So okay, two important questions you are probably considering. Would this run look all that different from, well, anyone else's run of the game (it is a casual game, right)? Well, I think so, since speed isn't valued in the game at all (it's turn-based) and that gives a normal player as much time as he needs to work out what he can spell, while a runner would have to start clicking letters as soon as his turn came up (giving him maybe a second, each time, to look at this bank of letters and come up with the longest word he can so he can start spelling it immediately). That brings up the next question: would it be any fun to watch? Being consistently -fast,- like speedrun fast, for even an entire chapter would be pretty punishingly hard, although simply being difficult for the runner doesn't make something enjoyable for a viewer, I suppose. Plus, with story scenes and all, it would run a bit long (estimating between three hours and 3:30), not the longest run on the site but not quick either.
Please weigh in, this is a game I'd actually like to see a run for but I'm aware that I could be the only one.
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