Spellwards has quite frankly taken an embarrassingly long time to reach where it is today: on the cusp of its release on Kickstarter (hopefully some time late October 2024). The idea for Spellwards was originally birthed all the way back in 2019. I was inspired by Bananagrams, in particular its tense and frantic energy, and wanted to recreate the same experience but in a word game with more interactivity. While a brilliant game, my one gripe against Bananagrams has always been that it feels like a solitaire game played adjacent to other people. Very rarely is there eye contact let alone meaningful interaction.
I personally feel Spellwards offers the experience I set out to create when I first started designing it. Spellwards is real-time and maintains the tense atmosphere of Bananagrams. Every player can always jump in and play a card so there is always a sense of time pressure. Whenever a card is played, it becomes the new centre card, changing the core game state for each player which provides the meaningful interaction that Bananagrams lacked.
I’m also quite proud of the core word game mechanic at the centre of Spellwards, explained in the picture below:
The majority of the most popular word games tend to be letter shufflers, where players are given letters (either in tile or card form) and then they use the letters given to them to make a word. While a staple of the genre and undeniably fun, letter shuffling for me personally has grown somewhat stale. The core mechanic at the heart of Spellwards tickles slightly different brain muscles which adds to the unique feel of the game.
Developing and sharing Spellwards with people has genuinely been an unbelievably rewarding experience. Watching people wholeheartedly enjoying playing Spellwards always fills me with immense joy. I can’t wait to share Spellwards with the world and hope it’s an experience people are searching for.