Watchword

Watchword is a roguelike deck builder in which you play words on a board to score points and beat increasingly difficult trials. Careful planning and strategy matter alongside vocabulary: you invent words, use special symbols and combine pieces and book powers to create high-scoring combos.

Build your word strategy

You fill a bag and customize its collection of pieces, which come in hundreds of variations, including single-letter, double-letter, metal, glitched and gold pieces. You can see the entirety of your bag over the course of a run, giving you opportunities to build toward particular words and synergies. You can also try to spell your Watchword, a special word that expands the board for more powerful words in future trials.

Books add powers that can help or hinder depending on your pieces, and some change the rules entirely. The game includes more than 80 unique book relics: The Good Book adds infinite repeat letters to words, while Thesaurus encourages you to use new words. You can edit book values for a chance to align a relic with your build.

Trials and progression

Each run offers different possibilities. After a trial, you visit the Forum to upgrade your run, buy items and prepare for the next one. You can pursue new builds, unlock starting bags, books and difficulty levels, and uncover hidden unlockables. Watchguards each use a distinct strategy to make their level more difficult.

Game modes and scores

Endless Mode lets you continue chasing a higher score. You can check your stats and aim for new high scores, with scores reaching into the hundreds of billions. Watchword also lets you make up words to suit your strategy, including through forbidden books that expand the dictionary.