How I Made Word Play

0:00 Hi, I'm Mark Brown from Game Maker's Toolkit,

0:03 and I am chuffed to bits to let you know that my new game,

0:08 Word Play, is out now on Steam.

0:10 It's a game where you spell words to score points,

0:13 so you can unlock powerful perks that let you score even more points.

0:18 It's a game about spelling, and strategy, and synergies, and special powers.

0:23 It's got a classy art style, a boppin' soundtrack,

0:27 it's got accessibility settings, and difficulty modes, and loads more.

0:32 I hope you'll check it out.

0:35 Now for my first game, Mind Over Magnet,

0:38 I shared the entire process of making it across

0:41 15 or so episodes of my YouTube series, Developing.

0:46 But for Word Play?

0:47 Well, there just hasn't been time.

0:50 The game has come together so quickly that I've barely

0:52 had a chance to tell you how I made it!

0:56 But better late than never, right?

0:58 So here it is.

0:59 Here's how I made Word Play in just seven months.

1:06 Okay, so the idea for Word Play- which was essentially

1:10 to combine the poker roguelike Balatro with a spelling game like

1:13 Scrabble or Bookworm Adventures- the idea has been rattling around

1:17 my head ever since I played Balatro at the start of 2024.

1:22 But in December, I finally had a reason to try and make it for our secret,

1:29 Patreon-only GMTK Game Jam.

1:31 So I bashed together a game about spelling words,

1:35 scoring points, and unlocking rule-bending modifiers.

1:39 It was called Wordy, and it was actually pretty dang fun.

1:43 The response was great, I had a really good time working on it,

1:46 it clearly had a lot of potential,

1:48 and if I had any intention of turning this into a real game,

1:53 well I had better get on with it before someone else has the same idea.

1:57 And so, shortly after the jam was completed, I opened up a fresh Unity project

2:03 and started working on a more fleshed out version.

2:06 Now I decided that the best thing to do

2:09 at this early stage was to not worry about things like perks,

2:12 or rounds, or rogue-like elements- but to just

2:16 build a really good spelling game.

2:19 Something where it was nice and juicy to spell words.

2:22 Something that would work seamlessly across mouse and controller,

2:26 and keyboards, and touchscreens.

2:29 At the beginning of January,

2:31 I continued to build that basic word game- adding in features like

2:36 a shuffle button to mix up your tiles, and a letter bag.

2:40 But then, with the spelling game mostly done,

2:43 I started adding on the rogue-like features like the shop, and the perks.

2:48 I added the basic architecture for special tiles,

2:51 and started making modifiers which are your passive

2:55 perks- think jokers in Balatro, or boons in Hades.

2:59 By this point the game had 11 perks,

3:02 though they were mostly just there to test different functions

3:05 like having a modifier that can boost a tile's score, or the whole word's score.

3:13 In February, work started to slow down- mostly because I was

3:18 just focusing a lot of time on making videos for GMTK.

3:22 I added a few features, like the ability to sell modifiers, but that was it.

3:28 Then midway into February, disaster struck.

3:32 I was scrolling through my YouTube subscriptions and saw a video

3:37 on Second Wind with Yahtzee playing a game called Wordatro.

3:41 Which I didn't even need to click on it to know what that one was all about.

3:45 YAHTZEE CROSHAW: Ah ha ha ha ha!

3:47 JESS HOOPS: Oh, beautiful!

3:48 It was another game that mixed Balatro with Scrabble.

3:53 Damn.

3:54 Now, I briefly considered cancelling the game,

3:57 and I definitely regretted not showing this thing earlier,

4:01 but ultimately I decided that I can't control what anyone else makes.

4:07 The only thing I can control is how good my game is.

4:10 So I decided to keep working on it,

4:13 and just make the game as awesome as I could make it.

4:17 Oh, and then later that same month,

4:19 I listened to a completely random podcast about screenwriting,

4:23 and one of the hosts said...

4:25 JOHN AUGUST: We have a game for you to try out right now.

4:28 So it's called Birdigo.

4:29 Birdigo, like the thing that flies.

4:31 It is a roguelike deck builder where you're trying to make words.

4:35 Which you might think would give me a heart attack.

4:38 Another one!

4:39 But actually, this made me feel better.

4:42 Because between Birdigo and Wordatro, and over the next few months,

4:47 many more word-based roguelikes all having the same basic

4:50 idea of Balatro plus words but going in different directions....

4:54 well it feels less like I'm competing with and, in some people's eyes,

4:58 copying a single game, and more like I'm part of a growing genre.

5:03 So crisis averted, and I even ended up chatting

5:07 with the devs of both Wordatro and Birdigo and, well,

5:10 I'll have more to share on that down the line.

5:13 Suffice to say, we're all good.

5:17 In March, I finally gave the game a proper name.

5:21 Here's how that happened.

5:22 You see, the game has, essentially, lives.

5:26 But you use a life every time you spell a word.

5:30 So it's a bit weird to lose a life when you do something correctly.

5:34 That just feels weird.

5:36 So I asked my Discord users for alternative words to "lives",

5:42 and user Fly suggested "plays".

5:45 Which sparked the idea for Word Play.

5:49 Now, when you're making a word game, as it turns out,

5:52 every single possible name has already been taken by some other game or toy.

5:57 But Word Play?

5:58 Well, Word Play doesn't exist on Steam.

6:01 So you know what?

6:02 I'll take it.

6:03 I'll snap up Word Play.

6:05 Anyway, I started March by continuing to add more roguelike elements.

6:10 So I added upgrades.

6:11 They're your active perks which can change,

6:14 improve, duplicate, or discard tiles.

6:17 I added in all the special tiles- golden, diamond,

6:20 emerald, potion, and dot tiles- which all have unique gameplay.

6:24 I added in the special rounds, which are, well,

6:27 special rounds with unique requirements like "your word must have six tiles".

6:33 I added modifiers that can multiply the score.

6:36 And I added reroll to the shop.

6:38 So now that I had made the spelling game, and coded in all the roguelike stuff,

6:43 I could tie all of those elements together into a full

6:47 gameplay loop- so that it could be played as an actual game.

6:51 Which was especially important with the Game Developers

6:54 Conference coming up at the end of the month.

6:57 So now I could start getting proper playtesting

7:00 feedback on this new version of the game.

7:04 I distributed it on the GMTK Discord,

7:07 and took it on an iPad when I did talks at schools and colleges.

7:11 That led to lots of changes based on user feedback and requests.

7:16 I made it so you could rearrange the tiles on the board.

7:19 And I made it so you get extra bonus points if you spell especially

7:23 long words- because otherwise you barely get

7:26 any points for dropping a single mega word.

7:29 And then I took it to GDC,

7:31 where I spent the entire week playing it with other developers

7:34 and got fantastic feedback from the devs behind games like Patrick's Parabox,

7:39 Spell Tower, and Alto's Adventure.

7:41 Which led to even more changes.

7:44 Also I rode in a driverless taxi, and had my breakfast delivered by a robot.

7:50 San Francisco!

7:52 Also in March, I started reaching out to my collaborators on the project.

7:56 I emailed Zach, who did the music for Mind Over Magnet,

7:59 and offered him first dibs for the music on this game.

8:03 And I DMed Jay on Discord.

8:06 He made a spec video of the game with different sound effects,

8:09 and they were so good I hired him to do the whole game's sound design.

8:13 I also added in Unity Analytics to help with future balancing.

8:17 I created the Steam store page, though kept it private.

8:21 And I brought the total number of perks up to 52.

8:25 Basically, I went into hyperdrive.

8:28 Looking back on my notes, I can't believe how much I accomplished in one month.

8:33 I was racing through this game.

8:35 Development was coming along so well.

8:38 And then I broke my arm.

8:41 Yeah.

8:42 April was a bit slow.

8:44 I had to stop development for several weeks as I waited for my elbow to heal.

8:49 Jay finished the sound effects,

8:51 but it would be a while before I could put them into the game.

8:54 But I was able to slowly get back to work.

8:59 I added in a new special round where you have to play a mandatory tile,

9:04 or else lose two plays.

9:05 I added compound tiles, letting you play the letters I N G with a single tile.

9:10 And I added in the first modifier that was

9:13 based around the specifics of the word you spelled.

9:16 It's this one, which gives you a boost

9:19 if the first and last letters are the same.

9:22 These would prove to be very important

9:25 in the game's overall sense of strategy and balance.

9:28 But I think I'll talk more in depth about that in a future video.

9:32 Oh, and this also brought the total number of perks up to 74.

9:39 May started out with disappointment.

9:42 I managed to get in touch with the chap in charge of Apple Arcade,

9:46 which is the iPhone maker's Game Pass-like subscription service.

9:50 And so at his request, I sent over a build of Word Play on TestFlight.

9:57 Ten agonising days later, Apple Arcade wrote back to pass on the game.

10:03 Which was a huge shame, but hey,

10:05 it was cool for them to play it at the very least.

10:09 But okay, with that out of the way,

10:11 my goal throughout the rest of May was to get

10:15 a demo ready for Steam Next Fest in June.

10:17 Which meant fixing lots of bugs, adding lots of polish,

10:21 and chucking in a lot more cool features- like the glass tile,

10:25 which can be used to have a one-time copy of any other letter.

10:30 And so towards the end of May,

10:32 I was finally ready to reveal the game to GMTK viewers like you- with a demo,

10:38 an announcement video, and a let's play of the game.

10:42 Which was amazing.

10:44 The response was overwhelming.

10:46 20,000 players in a week!

10:48 The game got picked up by various YouTubers and streamers,

10:52 including Yahtzee on Second Wind, him again,

10:54 and the world's biggest Balatro streamer, Northernlion.

10:57 NORTHERNLION: I bet there's like some sick Italian

11:00 wines you can spell with these letters, man.

11:02 I also got an email from… uh, Apple.

11:06 Yeah, not their Apple Arcade team this time,

11:08 but a different group at the company,

11:10 who reached out to offer some help, listing it on the main App Store.

11:15 More on that in the future,

11:18 because right now I'm focused entirely on today's Steam release.

11:22 Plus, all of those demo players sent me so much great feedback and ideas,

11:27 which led to all sorts of cool stuff-

11:29 like being able to submit words over 10 letters,

11:32 and being able to petition for more words to be added to the dictionary.

11:36 And so at the end of May, the game was in a very good state.

11:40 And the game now has 90 perks.

11:45 By June, the basic underlying game was essentially done.

11:50 It was absolutely a minimum viable product, or MVP.

11:55 It had a fully functioning game loop,

11:57 it had saving and loading, options, and difficulty modes.

12:01 Still, I added a few more quality of life adjustments,

12:04 like the ability to peek into your bag or at the board during the perk screen.

12:08 Some accessibility features, like alternative controls,

12:12 dyslexia-friendly fonts, and spelling suggestions.

12:15 And I even added the groundwork for people to mod in custom

12:19 dictionaries and letter bags if they want to play with non-English words.

12:24 But, with all of that done,

12:26 and with Steam Next Fest taken care of, my job now was to simply make stuff.

12:32 So I added new tiles.

12:34 The mirror tile.

12:35 The exclamation mark tile.

12:37 The locked tile.

12:38 I added new special rounds,

12:40 like one where the maximum word length starts at four,

12:44 and increases with each word you submit.

12:46 And I added perks.

12:49 So many perks.

12:50 I started by bringing the game up to 100,

12:53 but then I thought of some more and took it to 120.

12:57 Then I had a few more ideas, and it was like, why stop at 143?

13:02 I might as well take it to 150, that's a nice round number.

13:06 And over the rest of the month, I slowly added a few more until I really,

13:11 really had to stop at a whopping 160 perks.

13:15 And look, I've got even more ideas, but let's save those for future updates.

13:20 But at this point it was time to start doing the final quality assurance, or QA.

13:25 I brought in a group of helpers- a mix of GMTK

13:29 patrons and people who gave particularly insightful feedback about the demo,

13:32 and had them run through the game over and over and over again,

13:37 looking for problems.

13:38 They found bugs.

13:39 They found typos.

13:41 They found perks that were overpowered, and perks that were pointlessly weak.

13:45 They helped me balance the difficulty curve, suggested Steam achievements,

13:49 and pushed me to add in features that I

13:51 had been way too lazy to make previously.

13:54 To be honest, this lot were the real MVPs- the most valuable players.

13:59 Without their help and guidance, the game that just launched would be buggy,

14:03 unbalanced, and just significantly less fun.

14:07 So a huge, heartfelt thanks to all of them.

14:10 Cheers.

14:13 And then finally, it was July.

14:16 It is July!

14:17 And the game is out now.

14:20 And so that is the story of how I made Word Play in seven months.

14:25 And if you compare that to the development of my first game, Mind Over Magnet,

14:29 which took me well over three years to produce,

14:33 well obviously things went a lot more quickly.

14:36 Now, of course, they're very different games.

14:39 And I was also a very different developer back then.

14:41 I literally had to learn how to use Unity while I made the game.

14:46 But it's not just that.

14:48 I also thought carefully about how to develop Word Play while I was making it.

14:53 To make sure the process was streamlined,

14:55 and to ensure that this game didn't devour years

14:58 of my life in the way that Mind Over Magnet did.

15:02 Now I'll talk more about this in future episodes of Game Dev 101,

15:07 which I'm looking forward to getting back to soon.

15:10 But as the Cliffs Notes version, it really came down to two things.

15:14 Number one.

15:15 I was ruthless about the game's scope.

15:18 I would routinely make decisions through the lens of which

15:22 choice is going to take the least amount of time.

15:25 For instance, I could have made unique art for all 160 perks,

15:30 like the jokers in Balatro.

15:32 And I would totally accept the criticism

15:34 that the game is worse off for not having that.

15:37 But ultimately, using a more simple set of icons saved weeks of time.

15:42 And it was the difference between the game coming

15:44 out while I still had some fuel in the tank,

15:47 versus causing the development to drag on for many more months.

15:52 And number two.

15:53 I would develop the game in a kind of layered approach,

15:56 where I would focus on one part at a time.

15:59 For instance, in December,

16:00 I focused exclusively on just making a good spelling game.

16:04 Then when that was done, I focused on getting the roguelike game loop complete.

16:09 Then I just made perks all day, every day.

16:14 And then I just did bug fixing and balancing.

16:17 Now of course, none of that is really true- I was

16:20 still adding in features from previous layers as development went along.

16:24 But for the most part, I did just focus on making the bones

16:28 of the game before turning my attention to the content.

16:32 Which made development faster and more agile,

16:34 as I was always building on the really strong foundation of the previous layer.

16:40 And so ultimately, while I'm really proud of this game-

16:43 and I think it is genuinely a lot of fun and I

16:46 hope you dig it- I think I'm even more proud

16:48 of the fact that I made a video game without losing my mind.

16:53 By taking everything I learned from Mind Over Magnet,

16:56 and really planning out the development

16:58 instead of just making stuff willy nilly,

17:00 I was able to take this game from idea, to prototype,

17:04 to playtesting, to QA, and to release in just seven months.

17:09 So I'm going to leave it there, so you can actually go and play the dang game.

17:14 It's out now on Steam for PC, Mac, and Steam Deck.

17:18 There's a 10% discount for the first week,

17:20 and there's still a free demo if you haven't tried it yet.

17:23 And now, well, give me a sec to fix all of the inevitable bugs,

17:28 and then I'll see you later this month for GMTK Game Jam 2025.

17:34 I will not be taking part.

17:36 Do not let me.

17:38 I cannot be trusted.

17:40 Bye bye!