Paperback: The Game

a good word game is hard to find. especially one that's done well, not just a good idea executed horribly, like paperback: the game. it's the digital version of a board game I haven't played, but was intrigued because I love word games (and books). online multiplayer doesn't work anymore, only local or against the ai, but they didn't even bother to remove online stuff from the menu, or at the very least add an in-game warning.

it's for 2-4 players, the ai has 3 difficulty levels. there are a bunch of avatars to choose from and rules are briefly explained in the game, with only a 'next' arrow, can't go back and forth. rookie mistake, one of many. another would be using 'tap' in the optional help messages. I'd say you can't get any lazier than this when making a pc version of a mobile game, but do read on.

cards contain one or two letters, make words with them, buy more cards with your points/money, repeat. cards available for purchase are visible on top, will be shuffled into the deck. wildcards can be used as any letter, worth nothing score-wise but have a single so-called fame point, which is what your final score is based on. fame cards with no score but a higher fame value can also be bought, and there are community cards as well. you can grab one in every turn (which wasn't clear from the tutorial) and if used in a longer word, it also gives fame. the first needs 7 letters, the next 8, but you'll get offered the same one until it's used in a long enough word.

score/cash doesn't carry over between turns, might as well spend it all. besides letters, price and a score value, cards can also have abilities. things like double word score, words with a certain score granting an extra card or more cash, trash a card at the end of the turn, etc. you can set how many of each fame-toting card you'd like in their respective decks and the game ends when 2 of the 4 piles of fame cards or all the community cards are gone, whichever happens first.

and that's it, not a hugely complex game. very basic, in fact, not much meat on the bones, but could work as a brief time-killer. there's a log of the happenings, surprisingly nice touch, but the dictionary will always be iffy in these things, with many words not recognized. however, one of the major dealbreakers is no mid-game saving. you have to play the whole thing in one sitting or start over next time. absolutely unacceptable.

graphics are is fine but the interface is very mobiley and I wasn't a fan of the jazzy music, as usual. nor the fact that switching tasks and going back to the game both reset the music. what the fuck is that? a song is playing, switch to another running task and a new one will start instead of the game shutting up, and when you go back to the game, the song will change again. there are very few tracks in the game, making the situation even worse, so I just turned off the music after about a minute.

settings are practically non-existant. no speed settings or toggles for repeating animations. no full screen(!), alt+enter doesn't work either, you can maximize the window, that's it. no volume settings, only separate toggles. I was surprised to find an exit button at least. the real board game has better functionality, as you can just tell people you're playing with to act faster or speak less loudly.

I also ran into some buggy behavior, shocking. click cards that weren't supposed to be clickable or bring up an empty screen with a confirmation button. and my favorite, things keep happening over the open 'pause' menu. beyond words.

I bought it a few years ago on sale because I thought it was a good enough deal even without multiplayer (mostly because I don't do multiplayer), but after having tried it, it's impossible to recommend, free shit is still shit. the devs recently re-released the same thing as 'vol. 2' with working (for now) online multiplayer, but you have to buy it (again if you already paid for this). it still doesn't have any basic functionality though, which is appalling, so don't bother with either.

Good Game with notable downsides:
* Music and Sound Effects don't have levels beyond "on" and "off"
* No resolution, fullscreen/window, or graphics controls.
* If your settings don't match expectations you may have to chase down the window's title bar with "task view" and fingers crossed.

They fixed most of the issues people who rated this below are complaining about in the intervening years. As it stands its a deckbuilder so intuitive and elegant you can get people who like word games more than stategy intoit :O

Nice competitive word game. I would consider it to be a 'cozy' board game. If you like stuff like Wingspan or Patchwork, you may like it. Grab a cup of coffee, or tea, and chill out playing a game or two.

I love word games, but have no one to play with. Online games can drag out. This is a fun word building game where I can modify it to become more difficult and it is the right length of time to sit and play.

Paperback: The Game is a deckbuilding wordmaking game. It's like Scrabble if you were collecting letter tiles to put in your own bag that other players couldn't use.
The idea is good, the rules are a bit arbitrary and the theme of writing a bestseller is not well integrated. There's some strategy in choosing which cards to buy, but there's not much in the way of tactics - since all your cards are disposed of at the end of your turn, there's no reason to try to hold on to high value letters and hope to get a better selection next turn. It's just go for the highest scoring word every time.
I haven't tried multiplayer, only played vs the AI, which is OK - it doesn't make the best use of card abilities, missing out on easy bonuses at times. Against that, the lexicon it uses has a lot of words I'd never used before, so I can't say I'm not learning new vocabulary - it's just not all that much fun. The gameplay just gets repetitive after a fairly short time.
It's cheap and I would have enjoyed this a lot more if I was eight or nine. At the age of fifty, it's a way to pass a few minutes, and it is at least easy to dip in and out of every now and then.
Overall, I'll give it a recommendation, but I'd suggest looking for some play footage before buying to make sure you know what you're getting.

Constantly crashes, minimal tutorialization, there is no way to turn the music down or speed up the AI turns. Would not purchase

One of the few games that I'm not only disappointed in, but feel ripped off by.

if this game were only single player, I would recommend it. However, the online multiplayer is so frustrating and so broken I would rather the game not include it at all. Not only did I experience error messages when trying to create rooms, but the format of the multiplayer (players cannot view the table simultaneously) seems antithetical to the fast paced nature of the gameplay. If the developers fixed this, I would wholly recommended this game, as it is, I cannot.

The AI is terrible and repetitive and the game play is somewhat blah and uninteresting. Might be interesting in multiplayer, but I have not done that. Hardback is a better game (the table top game) - more strategic.

Haven't played the physical version, so can't compare, but this game is addicting and great for when you want to play a combo deckbuilder/scrabble type game for a few minutes.

The concept is great, I just think some of the decisions regarding the rules were made without proper consideration. For instance, if you attempt to play an illegitimate word, there is no punishment. When I play online I feel like my opponents are either cheating or abusing this mechanic. It takes some of the fun away.

EDIT: The game doesn't seem to work at all anymore. The devs said they were taking it down in order to fix issues. Let's see what happens when it comes back up.

Deck building word game - what a fantastic idea! build words from the letters in your hand and use the score to buy more letters to add to your deck. I've looked at the physical version of this for a long time, but most of my family isn't that interested in word games. This was an easy way to jump into it, and I'm winning them over :) great art, great mechanics, and the AI makes it fun to play solo. Can't recommend it enough.

Love the game, but the online system needs a lot of work. You get kicked back to the lobby between turns, and have to wait for your turn to get back into the game. But when I play offline with AI i can see everyones turn and not have to leave to the lobby.... Fix this and the game would be perfect untill then please let the purcheser know when buying the game.

The user interface for this game is not conducive to playing the game. You cannot see the gamestate until it's your turn, and afterwards you are kicked out into some lobby. I hope whoever made the actual game got their money's worth, because they should not trust whoever developed the digital version.

The worst implementation of a digital game I have ever attempted to play. You get shown the 'board' so you can make your word and once you've done that you get taken out of the game, back into the menu page/lobby while the other player takes their turn. Dreadful implementation and it's such a shame because the physical version of the game is so good. Heavily disappointed. Will never play this again.

I have the physical copy of this and enjoy it - so I got this just for time passing and a bit of practice.
AI is ok and can be a bit of a challenge.
A repeated game lock up issue when dragging cards seems to have been resolved.
This version is helpful as my partner has trouble shuffling and so online is a preferred method of play for us.
Would be nice to have some of the game expansions as options, and also for the music to be longer or more varied. It gets repetitive

Simply a great game. I really enjoy the challenge of trying to make words out of the random cards i am dealt, and the theme is great. I am really glad there is no timer on my turns as trying to make a word using all of my cards can lead me to analysis paralysis. (I am terrible at games like this, but love the challenge of trying.)

My one complaint is that there isn't fullscreen or any other options like that. I'm also hoping that expansions come to the digital version of the game.

Even if you only play games in single player, this is a great game to get if you like deckbuilding and word games.

If you are Scrabble fan, or a fan of vocabulary games in general, you'll like Paperback. The artwork is perfect for the game, and the rules are simple and straightforward to understand. It is quick to play and a nice well executed casual game.

The one exception I will make is that it is not clear how and when to activate some of the abilities that some cards have. For example one of the C cards has an ability that you can trash a card to gain a card of higher value. It is not clear when and how this ability can be availed. It would be nice if the developers could address this and make it clearer. The game is still playable and winnable without making use of the abilities that are not automatic, but if it's part of the game it should be clear how to use this function.

It would be nice also to be able to make the window fit the screen, so the artwork can be better appreciated, especially those clever bookcovers of the 'best sellers' that make up some of the victory cards.

I came across this hidden gem purely by chance while randomly searching the store for card based games.

A thoroughly delightful game.
Aesthetically pleasing, simple to learn, great fun to play.
The whole theme gels together well.
This has jumped to 1st place in my top ten quick play games!

10 out od 10