Paperback Adventures Reviews

I've loved other Fower games and I was excited to see a digital version of one I hadn't tried. I'm decent at scrabble and bananagrams, play wordle daily, solve crosswords on occasion. I thought a word deck builder game sounded awesome. I may be missing something but I've played 3 hours and yet to play through all the levels of the first 'book'. I'm at 3/10 I think it says. I can't count how many rounds I've lost, it's a lot. I think the closest I got was round 6 in the tutorial 'book', didn't clear that level either. It seems impossible to win, whenever I get close the computer player suddenly gains huge advantages or has unblockable attacks. Strategy also seems unclear to me, are short words or long words better? Should I be trying to get as many crowns for myself and skulls for opponent or be focusing on attacking/blocking? I've kept trying different ways, different strategies. I really wanted to like this game. I keep hoping the new updates will fix the mechanics so its winnable. I can see in other reviews some have won so maybe it's just me. But it's frustrating. Graphics are cute. Theme is delightfully well done. Soundtrack is slightly annoying too repetitive but you can easily mute. McGuffins and items and building your own deck intriguing - seems like you could play repeatedly and have different game each time. More healing items/mcguffins would be great (says the player who keeps dying). But yeah unless the kobayashi maru is your idea of a good time I can't recommend this game. Update a couple hours of playtime later: I finally beat a book! 1 down 2 to go. I am switching my review to recommended, because you know what, despite being unwinnable for so long I kept coming back to it. I'm not sure what if anything changed in the updates since I last played, but the strategy that finally worked for me was to focus on the items/mcguffins. Good luck adventurers!

As it is right now, this is a recommend by a hair. Wish there was an 'on the fence' choice. The so-called "word play" aspect of this game is almost absent. I really want to like this game. It's an OK game, but I have no interest in playing any further. I love the design, and the UI seems fine. There is just something lacking about the word play.

Great take on the roguelike deckbuilder with word building as the main thrust of the game. Lighter on the deckbuilding than something like slay the spire, but with a similar roguelike progression, and not really a full blown word game. It occupies an interesting middle space. Each encounter plays like a tight puzzle. Can be a little crunchy on the harder difficulty, but overall not a brain burner. Has moments of great satisfaction when the stars align for the perfect word. Love the pulpy art style. It's a fun game.

What a wonderful concept, with a fantastic pulp-comics presentation. If you like scrambled word games, that is the essence of the gameplay from hand-to-hand, but don't be fooled: the game has incredible depth in terms of the challenge each of its enemy types presents to the player; your ability to choose and build your deck of letters will have to be balanced with each of the player character's unique abilities with consideration to the types of challenges you will face. This game is primarily a DECK BUILDING and PUZZLE GAME than it is a word scrambler, the resources you will have to manage will vary in priority opponent to opponent, and some of them will feel impossible to beat - in fact they very well may be when you first face them; But losing in this game does not mean all is lost, there is a progression system that earns you XP for whichever of the three different PCs you're playing as, leveling up grants more card options, more "character archetypes", which come with different abilities; This is not a game you should expect to go an undefeated streak against, but rather learn and build your options off the backs of your failures. While some challenges seem downright unfair (looking at you, "Handsome") it felt more like a "Okay, I have to keep this in mind if I face it again" rather than a rage quit inducing experience, although I understand not everyone wants to have to accept failure in their games, so keep that in mind with this one. Extremely satisfying gameplay for me, and yeah, you'll end up using the same words quite often, but again it's more like using a safer, lower-string combo in a fighting game, when you get better you'll figure out how to turn those lower-letter words into longer ones, but given the situation you may want to even stick with a two letter word, and you're almost always given two "wild card" letters allowing you all sorts of dynamics depending on what you draw. I'm kind of just raving about this game at this point, I wanted to be clear what it is exactly and also how immensely I enjoyed it. 10/10 in my book, great fun!

It's a word game/roguelike hybrid where each half is compelling and synergizes strongly with the other. I put off getting this one cuz curating your own pool of letters sounded too abstract for me to get my head around, but the process is intuitive. After one fight with a J in your deck, you figure out whether that was a great idea or a terrible idea quickly. The presentation is bare-bones, and there's limited item/passive variety. I don't see that as a problem for this game, but if you only play the most cost effective, tippety-top tier roguelikes (Hades, Binding of Isaac, etc), this isn't that.

I'm a huge fan of the Paperback deckbuilder (physical game) and word games in general. I was really excited for this, I mean board game solitaire on steam and under one of my favorite systems? The game is fine but in no way challenging. 90% of your plays will use all your cards, there is no reason to make longer words and no reason to rearrange for a "better" score. They hide this under the left / right splay, but at the core I haven't once had to expend more than a modicum of effort to make the best word. Without that challenge it's just a "guess the best upgrade" path because you cannot preview enemies. It's just disappointing that it's so shallow, I mean for a word game that has such a strong tabletop presence (again Paperback the deckbuilder, not Paperback Adventures).

Great game. Watch the SU&SD or NPI reviews to learn if this is for you, but if you like word games at all, I think it will be.

Ultimately, I think this game delivers on a lot of what it promises. I did NOT buy this as part of the kickstarter, and coming from similar games like Slay the Spire and Inscryption I think this system has a lot of really great things going for it. It's an easy recommendation for people who like both word games and Slay the Spire, and is a nice start if you haven't played a ton of word games before: A typical hand will only contain 4 point-scoring cards, so you don't need to be constantly coming up with 9-letter words unless you're aiming for that strategy. Pros: + Genuinely unique spin on the boss battler card drafting game full of new ideas that feel good to play + Art and overall polish look great! The team clearly put in the effort to add incidental animations, thoughtful UI layout, and other things you don't always see in board game ports. Cons: - Not much. There are some strategies that feel overly powerful, such as musket plus double damage, but everything else feels well geared towards a series of difficult but winnable encounters. Wishlist: - There are some features I saw in the physical game that I wish were here: - Being able to see what the opponents will do multiple turns in advance - I really like the vowel mechanic people have mentioned from the physical game, and wish we had it here instead of the level 5 "random consonant" difficulty level. - Rather than a slider, I would have preferred to pick my own difficulty modifiers. Modifiers like the constrained wildcard and limiting end-boss healing are more exciting than "more boss health, less player health"

Wow! This is such an awesome word game, much better than just plain Paperback. I was somewhat disappointed that Bookworm Adventures was taken from Steam but this Paperback Adventures game makes up for it! Still hoping Bookworm Adventures 1 and 2 comes back to Steam somehow. However, I like everything about Paperback Adventures, the soundtrack, artwork letter rack and overall design of the game. After learning the basics and rules of Paperback Adventures, I'm really enjoying this game and I get better each time I play it! I am glad to have spent the money on this game. Hoping more Paperback Adventures titles will follow, I would gladly purchase those as well. These are the kind of games I prefer casual word games with an rpg spin. Orbi's Chronicles, Bookworm Adventures, Paperback Adventures, Highrise Heroes: Word Challenge, Alphabear: Hardcover Edition, and Scrabble Journey are currently my top favorite games at this point.

It's like Slay the Spire and Scrabble had a baby that was raised on pulp fiction. If any part of that description appeals to you, you'll probably have a good time.