Rendsword
A downloadable playdate game
There are tales of a magical blade hidden deep within a forest known as the Rendsword- a weapon so powerful it can cut the very words themselves. Yet those who wish to claim the Rensword must face a trial that will challenge their combat prowess, ability to strategize, and vocabulary. Will you be able to succeed where so many others have failed?
Spell Their Doom
Rendsword is a roguelike deckbuilding word game where players assemble a deck of letter cards to take on a series of ever more powerful foes. Make a word using the cards in your hand and the letter held by the enemy you face to attack, and do your best to outlast your foes through an onslaught of battles. Add new cards to your deck with additional effects, and collect relics with passive abilities that change the way you play.
Features a variety of foes, unique boss fights, relics and cards to build a variety of playstyles, and a harder difficulty for those looking for a real challenge.
Exclusively for the Playdate
This game is designed for the Playdate handheld system. If you don't have one, you can still play it via the official Playdate Simulator for PC, Mac, and Linux, available as part of the Playdate SDK.
This game uses the d-pad and buttons, with optional minor use of the crank.
We think this game is appropriate for everyone.
Purchase
In order to download this playdate game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $6 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Version 1.3Jan 05, 2024
- Version 1.2Dec 26, 2023
Comments
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I love this game. It's comfortably my most played game on the Playdate. Good concept and I'm only really limited by own vocabulary in terms of how hard or easy it is.
My only misgiving is the limited dictionary has ruined some of my Brutal runs. A few of the words that have been shown as "not a word" are melody, dreg and badge, and it's quite frustrating. Other words that I would think should be included are ones like boing and ska, but would have thought would be in any dictionary too.
Great game otherwise.
Thank you! I've been having some difficulties with expanding the dictionary (there's enough going on in the game that the playdate takes quite a while searching through a larger dictionary) but I've been given a few suggestions on how to address this that I'm looking into. I'm glad you have enjoyed your time with it!
Enjoying it, but the dictionary is very limited
I'm glad you're enjoying it! I got the dictionary from an external resource and I agree, it's very limited when it comes to more "slang" words. I've been looking into an alternative but haven't found the right one yet. Thank you for playing!
I've run into issues with adverbs and dialect words. Two recent examples are kens and rockily.
Maybe let the player know if a word is valid before playing it? Like pressing down to check the current word. Great game by the way!
I don't think I want that for brutal mode but I'm not opposed to that idea for normal mode! Might help people learn the dictionary. I'll look into it, thanks!
Thx for the response, would love to see it implemented like that!
I've played a lot of game similar to this and I think this is a strong entry into that genre even with how simple it is. The relics were really fun in how they changed which letters I picked and what words I made. I really liked the names of the enemies too.
Really liking this game! I wanted to report one crash im consistently getting on my runs... It happens after I pick up the item that randomly assigns damage to an enemy if you don't choose a target letter
I'm glad you're enjoying it! I know there was some issues with that relic before and I made some changes in the latest version that I believe fixed it. Are you on the latest version (1.2)?
Ahh ok I didn't see the update. I'll check it out!
I noticed that I get all consonants quite a bit in the game with no way to make a word. Is there any way around this? Also, the enemy that you are calling Consan-Ant is actually a spider. It has 8 legs in the graphic.
You can intentionally play letters that don't make a word to get cards out of your hand, and that usually helps when you have too many consonants or vowels to make a word. Also I'm sorry for spreading insect misinfo, but it looked cooler with two sets of antennae (not supposed to be legs)
The gameplay is great! I was hoping the crank did exactly what it turned out to do, which was a fun surprise: it randomizes the letters in your hand to help you see words you might not otherwise.
I see in the system menu that there's an option to abandon the run—does this mean that if I go Home it saves the run?
Update: While I haven't noticed any bugs, the game does seem to pause a bit when submitting longer words.
Thank you for playing, and I'm glad you're enjoying the game! The run does save to an extent when closing the game, although the exact state of the battle you're in is not saved so it's best to stop playing a run right at the start of a battle.
In terms of the freezing, the list of words is pretty extensive, especially for longer words, and it does take some time to search through them all. I've done what I can to lower the time this takes but due to the limits of the device the search does still take time. Luckily it's never more than a few seconds (you should have seen how bad it was when I first started working on the project!) so hopefully it's bearable.
I appreciate your feedback and hope you continue to enjoy your time with Rendsword!