Jargon (Beta Demo)
Jargon is a word-puzzle roguelite deckbuilder where you build words, collect powerful “books” that change the rules, and experiment with combos as you push through increasingly difficult rounds. This demo is still in beta, so expect placeholder art, missing visuals or audio, and some balance issues. Bugs and crashes are possible. An artist is currently creating new item and bounty art, so visuals will be updated in future builds. The browser version can be a little laggy, I recommend downloading the game for best performance.
Social Media
There is a Discord server for Jargon. Consider joining it here:
Also consider following me on X @bigdogdamon for the latest updates on Jargon.
Feedback Questions
Don’t feel the need to answer all of these, but any feedback is helpful!
General
- Did you have fun? (Be honest!)
- Was the game too easy or too hard?
- How long did you play before stopping?
- Did you find any bugs or crashes? If so, what caused them?
Books
- Which books felt the strongest? Which felt weak for their cost or rarity?
- Were any book descriptions confusing or unclear?
Bounties & Perks
- Did you engage with the bounty system?
- Were any bounties too easy or too hard for their tier?
- Which perks felt most impactful, and which felt weak?
- Were perk descriptions ever unclear or misleading?
UI / UX
- Was navigating the tabbed shop smooth, or did you avoid checking certain tabs?
- Were there too many, too few, or about the right number of shop items?
- Did you feel like you always understood your next possible move?
- Was the tutorial clear and helpful?
Music
- Did the music add to the experience?
- Were there moments when the music felt especially good or distracting?
- Did you notice the music changes (e.g., shop, last turn)? If so, how did they feel?
Known Issues
- Visual: Books that retrigger letters or words may flash twice, but they still only activate once.
- Visual: Tooltips may appear off-screen on the bounties tab in the shop. This will be fixed when artwork for bounties is added.
Download
Comments
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I want this game on Steam now, even though I suck at scrabble. Would probably work great as a mobile port too, that's how I prefer to play Balatro
It will be on Steam in December or January with a tentative launch date in March/April. I'm considering a mobile port, I'll do it if there's enough interest but I don't want to split my focus right now as I'm gearing up for the PC release
I've played a few rounds. Very interesting take on Balatro - I don't think I've seen any Balatro-likes use non-math skills yet.
I think you have a very promising game. I already enjoyed it despite the punishing difficulty.
Hey, thanks for the detailed comment. The difficulty has been the hardest thing to nail down, I'll keep balancing it. Glad you had fun!
a shuffling animation would also be cool. also the music is really, really nice
i just noticed that i cant actually make 2 words at once in one turn… why..?
the game is really nice. some qof features like quickly seeing which letters are left and how many of them are left, maybe a bit more effects, for example tile shaking when scored…
overall it has a really unique and nice design, def giving old school game vibes. would buy for sure
Hey, thanks for the detailed feedback, really appreciate it. Making two words at once refers to using letters already on the board, not letters you're currently placing. I should make the tutorial clearer on that. I agree, the scoring effects don't have enough "weight" yet, I'll work on that. I'll also make the item description font bigger. The Steam page should be up in 3-6 months, I'll make another post on Reddit when it comes out. Thanks again!
i also think you should be able to make multiple words from a not yet created word(so lets say i add a far and i should be able to make for example fog from the f, assuming the f from far is a new letter on the board
font in desc of items should be bigger for sure