I had a bit of trouble figuring out exactly what was going on, but after reading your Ideation document my best guess is that (for now) the only scoring is just to match up and make blobs of neighboring letters, and I had a pretty nice time doing so. Most of my notes just have to do with things that I'd guess you're already planning on implementing, but I'll say them anyway
- This game is begging for some calming music
- I'd love to see some more clear feedback on what exactly is scoring and giving me points each time I put down a tile, as well as just some general juice to the tile placement to make it extra satisfying when you make a good move
- Of course, I'd love for there to be an in-game how-to-play or tutorial
- Sometimes the animal words will cover up what letters are on each tile, and while I understand that those being letters are temporary, I'd say make sure that the animals in the final game don't cover up too much of the tiles
- I think that it's a lot more satisfying to have frequent smaller goals and smaller rewards rather than infrequent big rewards, like I much prefer the earlier 100pt and 800pt rewards to the 6400pt reward, just because then you're waiting a whiiile without the satisfaction of "ooh, more playing space", and each individual tile placement becomes less satisfying as it's a smaller portion of the larger goal
- Also, I wish I could rotate my pieces! There are a lot of times where I find a spot I really like for a piece, but then I realize I'd have to rotate/flip it
In terms of positives:
- I really like how you've done the orthographic perspective, I think it's a really smart decision
- The "upcoming tile" animation (when you place a tile and the next tile moves up) is really slick and nice looking, honestly that exact animation could be in the final game and nobody would bat an eye
- I think perhaps the best compliment I could give your game is that the entire time I've been writing this I've been playing a game of it, and every sentence or two I'll tab over to make another few moves, it's just a really nice simple puzzle and I'm excited to see how the animals and tile stacking will factor in. You've got a good base for sure!