Criss Cross Catacombs by juxipolo
Spell your way through the perilous catacombs! Collect treasure to score points!

Place letter tiles on the board to form words. Spell words across the board and spell a word through the exit tile to beat each level of the dungeon.
Each word placed (left to right or top to bottom) scores points based on the number on the tile.
Drag and drop tiles from your rack to the board. When you have spelled a word, press submit to verify and calculate your score. You must place a single line of tiles at a time, and at least one must be adjacent to an already placed piece. All the new words formed by placing tiles count towards your score. Blank tiles count as any letter but are worth 0 points.
There are a number of items you can collect by spelling a word on the tile the item is on. Hover over an item to see what it does.
| Link | https://mercurywave.itch.io/criss-cross-catacombs |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/criss-cross-catacombs |
Ratings
| Overall | 48th | 3.738⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 61th | 3.548⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 38th | 3.881⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 194th | 2.81⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 50th | 3.952⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 136th | 2.868⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 143th | 2.353⭐ | 19🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 118th | 3.194⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 30🗳️ | 0🗨️ |
Although it was sometimes frustrating when I wanted to reset the field so I could lay a better word or remove a misplaced letter, the entire hand of letters I had got replaced by entirely new letters :(
Still, it was really interesting to come up with words that could collect the coins or get me out of the lair :D
Great entry.
That game could really be fleshed out to something bigger.
Well done!
I regret that in the end, I could only try to piece together some words I know and then uncover more blocks, which indirectly made me learn vocabulary—not bad.
The reward of seeing score go up is a bit too low without a highscore, or dungeon features that only unlock once you've reached certain value. One idea I had was adding doors that only unlock after 50 or 100 or such score. It could also be that you need to pickup a key to be able to unlock a door. There could be enemies that discards the remainder of your hand if you place ontop of them... basically more stuff that makes it interesting to interact with the dungeon.
As the game stands right now, I found the most joy playing it just disregarding everything about score and bonuses and just trying to get to the end as fast as possible. So the wall layout, was the only thing that worked as intended for me. But those walls were great obstacles.
The rules for the blank was a bit odd too, or non-standard at least, in that they could have two different meanings when placing (one letter horizontally and one vertically). And you could on subsequent additions mutate the meaning of the blank as you saw fit.
So a very interesting start and with a little work could become a very engaging game.
Playthrough with more feedback:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5d8iaxFGjg
Truly awesome!
I know this game - in my language, it's called Bukvoezhka. Nice programm implementation, great graphics and they even had time for some sounds. Thank you for this work.
Besh wishes!