i had never ever seen a word game like
Spellirium, in which the Dictionary of fifty thousand-odd words is collectible and exposed to the player, AND collecting those words has some sort of bearing on gameplay - in Spellirium's case, those words become your currency. To pull that off, the real trick was going to be organizing the UI (user interface) for the Dictionary in an enticing - not overwhelming - way.
Well, Mission Totally Failed during our first attempt, which we outline in the video. Based on that initial UI failure, we made the following critical changes to the Dictionary that you'll find in the current version of Spellirium:
- By default, the Dictionary filters by words you've already made. So the first time you open the Dictionary, you see it filled with words that you recognize, because you just finished building them in a challenge.
- Instead of only two word states ("got it" and "don't got it"), there are now four states: unseen, seen, owned, and spent. You can filter the Dictionary using any of those parameters for more or less granularity.
- There's a cheeky % complete counter at the bottom of the current dictionary, which usually says something like "0.0017% complete". This is almost there to dissuade players from building all fifty thousand words because, come on ... get a life.
- There are two Cheeves in the game related to collecting words. One of them is called "You're Almost There", which rewards you for completing 2% of the Dictionary
The other one is for 100% completion, but it implores you NOT to achieve it, offers you no reward, and encourages you to get out and join a community group instead.
Developer
