The trailer sold it before the demo could. I was going to try the demo first, watched the trailer instead, and bought the game immediately after. About ten hours in, I haven't been disappointed.

Balatro and Boggle, sort of

Cursed Words is a roguelike: a run made of battles, each one built around a word grid. Building a word scores points based on the tiles it uses and whatever bonuses have been picked up along the way. Like Balatro, a battle gives several attempts, and their scores need to sum past the level's required total. Early on, there's no bonuses and no extra tiles beyond a character's one unique ability — it's a real, constrained word game.

Bosses

Bosses apply debuffs: restricted word lists, restricted tile access, boards or scoring altered outright. Some of the designs are clever enough to be fun to lose to. Every boss encounter offers a choice of two, so a run is never locked into a single fight — there's usually a lesser evil to pick.

The word game that stops being one

The title is accurate. Cursed Words starts as a word game and spends the run becoming something else. Bonuses stack, builds compound, and the grid starts producing words that weren't recognizable as words, for point totals that stopped being explainable by which tiles or words got chosen. The score comes from the build at that point, not the play. That turn — real word game to something else entirely — is the best thing about it.

What works

The design is genuinely clever: fun abilities, good bosses, and a boss choice that keeps a bad draw from turning a run's RNG punishing. The character art matches the game's tone. The audio feedback on a scored word is satisfying in a way that a lot of word games don't bother getting right.

What doesn't

The word list is tuned toward modern slang and obscure words over common ones. B-R-R-R clears as a word, which is a stretch. Wildcard resolution has its own logic that doesn't always match intent — S-T-O-N-*-S resolved to STONKS, not STONES.

Verdict

One star. Recommended, and remembered positively — see what the ratings mean. Anyone who likes roguelikes, or Balatro specifically, should get along with this.