Hi. Played your game for about 15 minutes. I loved the UI and how the game feels in general. But unfortunately I wasn't able to figure out what the game actually wants from me. How do I succeed? I get that I should form words, but it's unclear to me how to get many points. Like I have a word by default by the game and then I can maybe come up with 1 or 2 words that contain same letters as the starting one. Then I'm stuck.
In the description you say "Form words by dragging letters in and out of the word box to score points!", but ingame I wasn't able to drag them out of the box. Where? How? They stay in the box no matter what.
I might actually be stupid, but my advice would be for you to make an ingame tutorial that will teach player essential mechanics and gameplay loop.
Also note I'm not native English speaker, so there's that friction with forming words.
There is a game on mobile that I played which was about making words from letters, I don't remember the name. There were very few letters to play with on every level, like 4 to 6 letters. And it's already so hard to wrap your head around these letters and remember which words happen to have them and in which order. In your demo, you have like 20-25 letters sitting in the bottom? They are also unsorted, which makes you going through whole list looking for that letter C. I guess greatly reduce the number of available letters.
Also if this advice is of any use - provide direct questions for playtesters to make it easier for them to help you, maybe a google form?
The game seems promising though, I shall come back later
Viewing post in Wordpetition PLAYTEST comments
I do still need to add in an in-game tutorial, but I updated the how to play section of the playtest description to explain more about the game:
HOW TO PLAY:
Form words by dragging letters in and out of the word box to score points!
Insert the held letters at the bottom of the game into the word box to add letters to the box.
Draw letters into the bottom right draw pile to discard them out of the word box. Click on the draw pile to draw a letter to your held letters!
You can also reorder letters in the word box to form words.
Use the hint to spell special words, special words will give you Word Cards.
Word Cards are like jokers, they all have a unique effect and are essential to getting enough points to beat the round, you’ll earn most of the points in the game from them.
Try to find combos between the Word Cards!