“Spell words with over 25 different letters” as you travel through “Yorkshire-sounding” places in puzzle RPG Sternly Worded Adventures
T'oblerone
There’s nowt more magical than the lambent inscriptions of tangled sigils required to spell places like Ainderby Quernhow, Weedley Copse, or Upper Poppleton. A shiny whippet to the first of you to correctly identify which of these are real, and which were invented for “roguelite word puzzle RPG” Sternly Worded Adventures. Actually, scratch that. I’m not made of whippets, and you can just as easily find out yourself via the Steam demo. I think you should, if only because “I killed a slime by spelling out the word Toblerone” is easily in my top ten gaming moments of the year.
Wait. What?! What do you shitting mean ‘Toblerone’ isn’t a word?
A bloody travesty, is what that is. I’ll show you sternly worded, mate. Here’s how the game describes itself. Although, as we’ve already established, it’s not above lying to your actual face.
Sternly Worded Adventures is a roguelite word puzzle RPG inspired by Bookworm Adventures where you travel through a forested peninsula with Yorkshire-sounding place names fighting monsters with the power of words to uncover whatever dark secrets may be lurking beyond.
The game also boasts over 8 different classes, 15+ enemies, 180+ items, and the chance to “Spell words with over 25 different letters”. That last one took me a second, but I actually forgive you for the Toblerone affront now.
The demo itself seems pretty generous, giving you a good chunk of adventure, plus “full access [to] both of the Wordle and Minesweeper inspired minigames, without limit.” Big fan of Wordle, despite never having played it, on account of it effectively allowing me to complain about Toblerones for a living.
I couldn’t end this piece without asking for an opinion from our resident Yorkshireman Edwin, of course. Here’s what he had to say about the game making a mockery of the good people of Wigglesworth: "Wigglesworth is in North Yorkshire, the Oop Northenest of the northern English counties - Durham, Cumbria and Northumberland don't count because they've been infiltrated by the Scots and turned into factories for battered Mars Bars, and don't even get me started about chuffing Tyne & Wear, which sounds like a brand of shaving foam. I used to live on the border of North Yorkshire as a lad. We didn't get any Toblerones in those days, just foil-wrapped pieces of drystone wall, and if we'd seen a slime crossing the green we'd have et it. This game looks daft as a brush."