Ludum Dare #58compo
Criss Cross Catacombs
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.
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.
Tags: #word game
Genres: puzzle
Comments17
egor.ae_game6 Oct 2025, 15:47
It's really cool how you mixed different mechanics! Congratulations, this is an amazing idea!
grid969 Oct 2025, 18:17
Scabble with a twist, I like it!
bentglasstube13 Oct 2025, 03:05
This was an incredible idea and very well executed. The graphical style was awesome, the sound effects were nice and added to the mood. My only complaint was that there was no music to listen to while I played. I would legitimately buy this game
BlackCat50813 Oct 2025, 03:42
cool scrabble mechanics!
Aynu13 Oct 2025, 04:49
I love the concept you could turn this into a commercial game
Endurion13 Oct 2025, 19:16
Fantastic concept! Really nice, and it got a proper list of words. And thank god also names :)
That game could really be fleshed out to something bigger.
Well done!
That game could really be fleshed out to something bigger.
Well done!
Trusty13 Oct 2025, 22:42
Innovative idea. Like the scrabble adventure combo. Thanks for the game.
Yorsh17 Oct 2025, 23:55
I like the mood of this game. It's chill and looks great. It's lacking a bit of uniqueness imo, it's a little bit too much like scrabble in the end, although it going through a door is a nice challenge. Great work!
Lyssa18 Oct 2025, 00:22
I'm glad the graphics were kept simple here it helped me focus on how bad I am at spelling but I had a lot of fun with this one!
YibiRabbit00718 Oct 2025, 16:39
My vocabulary isn't enough for me to play this game XD
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.
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.
auxiliarymoose21 Oct 2025, 06:39
This is such a cool and well-executed concept! I really like the idea of navigating through a dungeon this way... there are so many things to balance. Do I go for a high-scoring word, but clog up my chances at navigating elsewhere (or even finishing the game)? Do I go for something easy now, but risk the rest of the game? Absolutely love it! The only aspect that's really missing is some juice & music, but it's a great game already. Thanks for sharing it!
tomrijnbeek21 Oct 2025, 20:00
Super original concept. Making use of the Scrabble mechanics but putting it on its head and making it a dungeon crawler, really liked it.
Myst22 Oct 2025, 06:25
I am very bad at spelling, so this game was incredibly difficult for me, but I had a lot of fun with it anyway! The whole thing was a creative spin on both the theme and the game scrabble. The graphical style and presentation were very cute too, I can almost imagine some kid designing a custom scrabble board by hand because the original version has become too easy for them. I do wish that there was a way to reset the an entire board/quit to the main menu that didn't require you to refresh the entire browser, but that's just a minor thing, overall this is a pretty good game.
Local Minimum22 Oct 2025, 10:53
A really good idea building scrabble into a slight maze. I played several of the levels, but not all as it took me a while to get through them. I find it very interesting a game, but I also feel like something in its structure doesn't make me want to engage with it in the right/intended way.
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:
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:
LDJam user 41635122 Oct 2025, 11:53
Nice little game! I would only say that it doesn't follow the theme much. Well, yeah, you can collect items on your way to the exit, but then, as my friend said, every game where you can collect some sort of scoring items fits the theme.
APDT22 Oct 2025, 15:37
Wow! You made this in two days?
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!
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!
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.