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I have played this game A LOT. It's one of my go-to chill out games because well, it's Wordle. Everyone knows Wordle by now and it's a well loved word puzzle game enjoyed by anyone that can read. The ROM is free to download on itch but I purchased the cartridge only edition to support the dev (and because I love this game and want to hold nice things in my hands).
Wordle itself is like Tetris; bare bones in its design, but with a quite frankly godly amount of replayability. The Games design it's just perfectly balanced as a puzzle game. Just as with Tetris, if you change one element, increase the letters per word, or remove or add a guess from the list, then the game is diminished. So right out of the gate, GB Wordyl is firing on all cylinders.
But what about it's interface designed specifically for the Game Boy? Well, it's doing really well on that front too. Navigating the letter selection is easy. You can move the selection cursor around the current word table to input letters out of order by holding SELECT and pressing A or B. You can also enable an auto fill of the correct letters already discovered. I was surprised at how effortless the experience of playing Wordle is without a keyboard, and having to use a Dpad, in fact. The user interface has been designed with care and close attention to detail.
As for the aesthetics, the SFX are rich and rewarding. And the animations are equally excellent, especially when you watch the letter boxes spin when a new line rolls over. There is also SGB support for those that want to play this on the big screen with a friend. I find it quite engaging to consider the solution with my partner for example, so the SGB feature is a welcome addition.
I will say that the only thing letting this game down is the graphics. There is a "starry sky" landscape used as a back drop but it doesn't really do anything positive for the experience over all. The chosen color palette is very bland as well. I can see why the graphics have been prioritised below everything else because it's a hefty amount of code packed into a 32KB ROM. Ultimately, these problems are a trivial matter as you soon forget about them while contemplating the correct answers.
If you're reading this BBBBBR, come find me and we can make an edit to the game together! I always envisioned a stack of books piled up on each other so you are spelling out the names of them on their spines!
If you're a puzzle fan, GB Wordyl is an excellent addition to your GB library for its expertly designed UI and well, its Wordle on the Game Boy!
PROs
---------
- User Interface design is exceptional
- Impressive coding feat considering the whole game fits on a 32KB ROM
- Supports a huge variety of languages
- Excellent SFX design
- ROM is free to download and code is open source
- It's wordle on the GB
CONs
----------
- Bland graphics and color palette design
Wordle itself is like Tetris; bare bones in its design, but with a quite frankly godly amount of replayability. The Games design it's just perfectly balanced as a puzzle game. Just as with Tetris, if you change one element, increase the letters per word, or remove or add a guess from the list, then the game is diminished. So right out of the gate, GB Wordyl is firing on all cylinders.
But what about it's interface designed specifically for the Game Boy? Well, it's doing really well on that front too. Navigating the letter selection is easy. You can move the selection cursor around the current word table to input letters out of order by holding SELECT and pressing A or B. You can also enable an auto fill of the correct letters already discovered. I was surprised at how effortless the experience of playing Wordle is without a keyboard, and having to use a Dpad, in fact. The user interface has been designed with care and close attention to detail.
As for the aesthetics, the SFX are rich and rewarding. And the animations are equally excellent, especially when you watch the letter boxes spin when a new line rolls over. There is also SGB support for those that want to play this on the big screen with a friend. I find it quite engaging to consider the solution with my partner for example, so the SGB feature is a welcome addition.
I will say that the only thing letting this game down is the graphics. There is a "starry sky" landscape used as a back drop but it doesn't really do anything positive for the experience over all. The chosen color palette is very bland as well. I can see why the graphics have been prioritised below everything else because it's a hefty amount of code packed into a 32KB ROM. Ultimately, these problems are a trivial matter as you soon forget about them while contemplating the correct answers.
If you're reading this BBBBBR, come find me and we can make an edit to the game together! I always envisioned a stack of books piled up on each other so you are spelling out the names of them on their spines!
If you're a puzzle fan, GB Wordyl is an excellent addition to your GB library for its expertly designed UI and well, its Wordle on the Game Boy!
PROs
---------
- User Interface design is exceptional
- Impressive coding feat considering the whole game fits on a 32KB ROM
- Supports a huge variety of languages
- Excellent SFX design
- ROM is free to download and code is open source
- It's wordle on the GB
CONs
----------
- Bland graphics and color palette design