Only the icons and ability you can see activate during your turn, making the true challenge of Paperback Adventures the dilemma over which way to splay your cards and which letter’s power to use - either the first or last letter, depending on which way you arrange them.īoth your character and the boss track health, hexes and boons around the edge of their character tray, making it easy to save your run and continue later. As a word is constructed, the cards must be overlapped, leaving only one edge uncovered and only the top card’s ability visible.

You won’t be using all of your icons and abilities at once, though. Each card has icons down its left and right sides, plus ability text in its middle. This comes down to the ingenious twist designers Tim Fowers and Skye Larsen have put on Paperback Adventures’ word-building. Using all of your cards can be helpful in totting up more attack, defence and energy resources, but often it’s how you play your cards rather than what you play. The fairly low selection of letters each turn means that the pressure is relieved from spelling an impressive multisyllabic word. For example, the ‘U’ in The Sludge Alien.Ī cheeky sense of humour runs throughout Paperback Adventures, with nods to pop culture and literary tropes. What’s more, you almost always have access to wild cards - which can count as any letter - and a boss vowel, which gives you a specific vowel to reflect the boss’ weakness, charmingly plucked from the boss’ own name. In Paperback Adventures, the player typically only has four letter cards in their hand, meaning that most words you’ll be spelling are fairly short and simple. Before those of you with memories of excruciating Scrabble turns spent arguing over whether “OK” is a legal word ( it is) or hours spent trying to use all seven letter tiles groan and leave, know that you probably won’t need to have a dictionary to hand.

You’ll also need to spell a word with them. Of course, this is a Paperback game, so it’s not quite as simple as just playing cards for their attack and defence values. The player typically only has four letter cards in their hand, meaning that most words you’ll be spelling are fairly short and simple.

For each foe you defeat, though, you’ll earn various upgrades and be able to modify your deck to help in future battles. Your character’s health carries over between fights die, and it’s back to square one. The player must take on six battles in sequence across three “books”, alternating between three minion-like lackeys and three more formidable bosses. Matt and Lolies play the original PaperbackĪs in Slay the Spire, Paperback Adventures is designed as a roguelike experience. Like Slay the Spire, Paper Adventures throws its solo player (co-op multiplayer variants are included), into a gauntlet of battles that they must overcome by carefully playing cards from their hand to damage their enemy, block incoming attacks and build up energy to spend on even more powerful abilities. If the original Paperback was Scrabble meets deckbuilding granddaddy Dominion, with players gradually adding to their deck of letter cards by spelling words to gain coins (used to buy more letters) and points, Paperback Adventures is Scrabble crossed with Slay the Spire’s roguelike, boss-rush card combat. Combine the two and you end up with something very special. Slay the Spire is, for many players, the greatest digital card game going. Paperback is, for my money, the greatest board game about spelling words out there.

Slay the spire board game