Ex-Call of Duty creative strategist Robert Bowling and comedian Dane Cook have revealed a brand new, genre-bending video game known as Vicious Vocab, exclusively to IGN.
Vicious Vocab is a genre-bending spin on casual word games like Scrabble, Words With Friends, and Wordle, with a big twist. While Bowling and Cook are careful not to share much about the twist to preserve some surprises, the game goes well beyond mixing and matching letters to make new words. The words have power and meaning… and they can dramatically change not only what happens to you, but the entire genre of game that you’re playing.
Check out the trailer below to get an idea of the unexpected shift that happens in Vicious Vocab.
Made by a team of five people who collectively call themselves “funcool games,” Vicious Vocab is described as “Scrabble meets Balatro in a backroom casino.” On its own, it’s a fun twist on the word game genre. There’s an action element, which has led the team to referring to the game as a “word brawler” or, in Cook’s words, a first-person speller.
You can “take damage” based on certain words. You can then counter it with another word, so long as you have the right letters. For instance, as seen in the trailer, if you spell out “torch” or “fire,” you might take fire damage. You can then spell out “water” or “ice” and extinguish the flame to stop yourself from taking more damage. These effects add interesting layers to the expected mechanics of a word game.
“That's something you don't get in normal word games,” said Bowling when speaking with IGN. “Building systems that work against systems that work against other systems. When you're four layers deep in a combo, that is the stuff that really makes you feel like, 'Am I playing a word game anymore?' I know I'm making words, I know I'm using letters, but the sort of chaining of events you can get yourself into really sort of that's when you start breaking out of one genre and start making something new.”
However, as the trailer reveals, Vicious Vocab can shift in an incredibly unexpected direction, taking it from a cozy game your mom might play casually on the couch to something in line with The Stanley Parable. If you play the right words, you can move away from the word board and have an entirely new experience that you would've never anticipated.
"We both want to create holy s**t moments," said Cook. "We want to create memorable moments."
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/dane-cook-and-robert-bowling-announce-vicious-vocab-a-genre-bending-word-game-with-a-big-twist
