Paperback: The Game

I love the game concept and may eventually buy the physical game. I play it with my partner once a week or more and we have a blast. I thought I was pretty good at word games but she usually wins, and that keeps things interesting.. The only issue I have with the app is that it does crash or freeze once every few games, wiping out whatever game we were playing. The most persistent bug seems to be a crash while playing, then when we restart the app and try to ‘continue game’, the app crashes while loading, every time. annoying, but not a game breaker. 4 stars for fun, 5 if they can clean up the bugs a little more.

I love this game. The way it works is you play against the computer or another player in taking turns dealing out a set number of cards from your personal deck and forming words to score points and buy more cards for your deck. Wild card are victory points. It is HUGE improvement over WordswithFriends or Scrabble in that you can build super long words, and you are not limited to either of those games’ unchanging type and numbers of letter tiles. Like in other deck building games, Dominion for example, the cards you buy for your personal deck have special powers - drawing extra cards, exchanging cards, etc.- which make each game play unique, and which allow you to explore many, many different strategies for winning. I have played for hours and hours. It strikes an excellent balance between luck, skill playing the deck building, and word proficiency. Love it! If I were to make two requests: The ipad version does not spell out ANYWHERE the rules regarding the extra vowel available to all players during all plays. And those rules definitely add to the game interest and complexity! (They can be found online.) Also please make an expansion with different sets of cards. More Paperback please!

I really really enjoy this game and I would frankly play all the time EXCEPT that the app automatically turns off whatever music, podcast or audio book I'm listening to, and as a commuter I am constantly listening to one of those three. I find it so annoying. Otherwise I really enjoyed the app though would have liked some more customizations. But really WHY WHY WHY would an app these days force it's own music and sound on you? It's such a stupid decision. If this ever gets fixed or updated I will happily change this review.

I love Paperback, but even putting aside the missing attack cards, it would be neat if the missing Common Cards were added, along with some of the cards from the expansion released as part of the Hardback Kickstarter. In addition I periodically have to shut down the game because it won’t let me move cards. Finally, no matter what I try I can’t get the pending games badge to show up on the app icon on my iPhone, so I sometimes leave games sitting for a day or two. Still, worth the money, but it could be better.

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This game is a little pricey for what it is, and is even more frustrating when it stops working in the middle of the game. There have been many occasions when ten minutes into a game, my tiles become inactive despite the game telling me to use them. I can still touch the cards up top and see their abilities, so I though that turning my phone upside down might solve the inactivity, but it just does the same thing. Cannot recommend this game until that issue is fixed.