Exploring the Unlikely Fusion of Word Games and Slots in Game Design

When designing something explicitly called a “skill game,” a classic Vegas-style slot machine does not typically come to mind. Instead, word, arcade, card and gameshow games are what people typically think of as a skill game. However, in the real-money games space, slots games remain an oft-desired genre for devoted players. WorldWinner is always on the search for new ways to appeal to their players, so cracking the concept of a skill-based slots game became a worthy challenge. One idea that remained top of mind was a mashup with another favorite genre, the word game. This nebulous idea (which was called Word Slots from concept to execution) took on a number of iterations leading to its current incarnation.

We wound up with a game that combined the infinitely repeatable, brain-stimulating challenge of word games with the speed and excitement of slots and managed to tackle the question of variance, which is especially challenging in the skill gaming industry as the games need to be won through skill rather than luck. In this post, I’ll talk a bit about how to make an unlikely combination work and how to tailor an idea to a discerning audience’s expectations.

Finding the Right Mix

Let’s start by defining our genres. Slots games typically work like this: you pull a lever to spin the reels, and then you get a payout if the result is a payline, a defined pattern of matching symbols. While aesthetics can vary wildly and paylines can differ slightly, the mechanics are typically limited, based on luck, and about the same. And, of course, mechanically, the genre is far more open-ended. Word games, on the other hand, are abstract in their theme and rely on the wisdom of the player in the face of variance. When approaching a word game, you have many questions to answer. Are there constraints on the types of words you can make? Must letters be adjacent, like in Boggle? How many letters does the player get at a time? The differences between the genres at a fundamental level are stark. Luckily, there’s obvious common ground: symbols and letters. We started our journey there by finding where the “contradictory” genres overlap. We broke things down into a primitive synthesis of the two. Take a slot machine and put letters where the symbols on the reels would go. Select the letters to form a word, then spin the slot machine to lock it in. 

At this point, we had enough to say what we had was a “word game,” so next came the more interesting part of creating our hybrid exchange. Piece by piece, we slowly added mechanics inspired by slots games and applied it to the skeleton of a game we had. We knew the frenetic pace would be the most important adoption. We also identified that spinning the reels was essential and would have to be a mandatory component of the experience. Reels would spin every time you submit a word, but also automatically spin after a set amount of time, jumbling your letters. For powerups, we identified that paylines were a moment of excitement that we could borrow (this ended up being a little problematic, which we’ll talk about later.) 

 From here, it became clear that we had a game that was both a word game and somewhat a slots game, but it was missing something unique to tie it all together. That’s when we dipped into an unexpected place: roguelikes! We had been toying with the idea of re-using letters, even after a spin of the reels. Then, what if the letters became worth more points the more you used them, but you had even less time to submit them? This stemmed from the loose idea of roguelike progression - you test your luck and keep improving until you hit a wall and have to start all over again. While this took some re-scoping and tweaking, the core idea made a ton of sense with our system by allowing players to hang on to letters and subvert the chaos of the slot reels! What became abundantly clear is that when combining concepts from different genres, it sometimes takes additional inspiration to find the right balance and bridge in between. 

This wasn’t always a perfect process. Some weeks would see the project tilted too far into the chaotic slots direction, and some weeks the game would feel bland. When we introduced our “roguelike” system, we inundated Word Slots with complexity. Ultimately, this was a good thing. By going back and forth on our emphasis, we were able to come to our happy middle ground. How? The answer isn’t complicated. Like any Game Design issue, the most important means of sussing out the design of a hybrid game is extensive and rigorous playtesting. Not only did we playtest nearly every week in our company tests, but we massively tested this game with the general public. Through this, we trusted our players to answer our more specific questions, like how many letters to have on the board or how long a player should have until the reels spin automatically. Crucially, playtesting illuminated the other challenge of this design: managing player expectations.

The Players

Making a hybrid game means taking on the task of juggling very different expectations depending on the player. Our dedicated word game players expected time to choose the right word and were sometimes confused about which letters they could select if they were accustomed to something like Boggle. Our slots players, on the other hand, knew how slots was always supposed to feel – fast and reliable. This is where our payline problems came in. We made our powerup mechanic as an homage to the payline, not exactly a true payline. This confused the slots die-hards. Word gamers had their own expectations as well, like Boggle adjacency rules, and we needed to reinforce the freeform nature of forming words. The lesson here is that entrenched players will notice any deviations from their preconceived ideas. You need to be careful and considerate of their expectations and use language that clarifies and never distracts. (We never refer to anything as a “payline” in Word Slots anymore.)

One last element that needs to be touched on in terms of player expectation is variance. An important ingredient to all WorldWinner games is fairness. WorldWinner games are explicitly “skill-based.” This means for players, we guarantee that their decisions are what caused their win or loss, not variance. This may not seem feasible in a game like this, but this became a critical detail in creating Word Slots. Being, in a sense, a virtual slot machine, players expected a level of variance. Players will receive all the letters their opponents will, but possibly at a different time. For our powerups, if a player would receive a powerup but can’t because there’s no room for a powerup to go, we simply give it to them at the next opportunity. The key to ensuring “fair” variance is really just making sure players feel like they’re getting lucky when, in fact, it’s their skill.

Coming Together

At a certain point, we realized through our testing and iteration that we had made something special - a word game that non-word gamers also love. Why? First, because of the time-based nature of the game, short words became more important than long words. Reusing short words meant more points, and therefore, players didn’t need to rely on a super-human vocabulary. Another reason was our simulated randomness, as players felt like they had a fighting chance regardless of skill level. Most gratifyingly, our roguelike-inspired progression system scratched a common itch among action game players: the urge to upgrade and see how high they could get a letter’s value. The word gamers enjoyed it, too, as their vocabularies and familiarity with word games only helped get them into a higher tier of scoring. As an aside, WorldWinner pairs players by skill level, so these distinct groups of players can enjoy the game no matter their skill level.

So, let’s summarize how we got to our unlikely “word game for non-word gamers.” Creating a “new kind” of game starts simple - find out where the genres overlap. From there, don’t be afraid to horseshoe back and forth from one end of the spectrum to another. Trust your players to tell you what’s working and what’s not, so include them in testing early and often, and make sure that you’re always designing with their best interests in mind. Empower them by helping them to rely on their own knowledge and give them opportunities to feel a range of emotions. Most importantly, I’d urge you never to be afraid of failure. Like many new ideas, Word Slots was not the start of a process but the very end of a long series of iterations.