Enworden

enworden is a word game where you embiggen words and your vocabulary. not simply by adding prefixes and suffixes (e.g. light -> delight -> delightful), and not even syllable by syllable, but from word chunks, so 'friendly' could be made up of fr+ien+dly or some other distribution of letters. word chunks have to connect to each other (diagonals are fine), so it's kinda like those chain-based match-3 games. more points for combos, so link up to 4 words in one go instead of submitting them individually, and it doesn't have to be one continuous chain either, every connected tile is available. there's a tutorial to teach the basics.
33 levels after a content update mean 30 different layouts (and a 3-stage interactive tutorial) with randomized tiles every time. there's a 3-star rating based on goals (find x words, do x combos, etc.), then you can end the level or keep playing. to make things more interesting/complicated, used tiles become inactive for a turn, then appear as a new, higher level one, and at max level turn into a conduit that acts as a bridge to reach letters in the distance. tile levels are indicated by their score value (and to some extent the number of letters), so using one with 1 or 2 will become 2 or 3 next time, and so on, up to 11-13, then another match removes them. each level has its own color too, but there's no rhyme or reason behind it. you can, however, check their upgrade path, so to speak, with a handy overlay.
levels are unlocked with stars and they offer 8 modes of play, but to my disappointment, it doesn't mean each layout can be played in 8 different ways, not yet anyway, they get assigned one of the following. you either have to use the provided letters or 2-letter tiles, have limited time or clicks, or single-use tiles that turn into stars immediately. other modes omit single-letter tiles while requiring the use of 4-letter ones, encourage creating longer words or want you to use all the letters of the alphabet (that's tough). the hard campaign comes with a few new game modes, including one that needs tiles to be upgraded to their max level (this was my idea). additional challenges are provided by achievements that aren't just for progressing through the game, they're pretty cool for once.
mid-level progress is saved when you quit, and here's a fun fact: not only the dictionary and the word chunks, but levels are also stored in simple text files, so they're open for editing. doesn't take long to turn a time limit level into a move limit one, but if everything was available in every variety to begin with, it wouldn't be necessary.
controls are a mixture of mouse and keyboard, 100% mouse is possible. you can either click each tile separately or use the more traditional dragging method, patched in after release. either way, you have to click the green checkmark or press enter as confirmation, less room for mistakes. click the red 'x' or the middle mouse button, press backspace, or right click while left is held to clear the selection. right click acts as undo, deselects the last tile regardless of the cursor's position, or you can left click each separately.
retro audiovisual presentation, right up my alley, won't be everybody's pixely wet dream though. separate volume settings, mute on losing focus toggle (so audio won't keep playing if you alt+tab), v-sync and resizable windowed mode make up the settings, also available while playing a level, and there are 4 save slots to keep progress separate, plus a few languages besides english.
it's a great concept and great fun, not as easy as it looks. a quick patch made it work on win7 despite the win10 minimum mentioned on the store page, and other fixes and improvements got implemented pretty much instantly after bringing them up. even the demo was brought back after release, so no reason not to heartily recommend it to cunning linguists.

I don't know many fancy words, but this game made me realize how shamefully little I actually know. Some of the levels feel like if your english teacher makes you look dumb in front of the whole class and everyone laughs at you, but in a good way
nothing beats the feeling of getting an accidental 3 star victory because you're a dumbass that clicked the wrong tile and learned a new word by accident
perfect 5/7 would learn new words again

Nice game, if you like word games. I haven't seen mechanics like this anywhere else.
Some of the levels felt way too easy, but I got the game for free as thanks for playtesting so I was already familiar with the base mechanics and some strategy. Some levels were certainly a good challenge though and even the easier levels I was able to add some challenge to myself by trying to solve them in one turn (quite a few are solveable this way).
I think it took me about 8 hours in all to 100-% the game. My playtime is a bit higher because I left the game in the background just to listen to the kickass original soundtrack.

Enworden is a smallish word puzzle game that turns out to be reasonably fun. Given a 2D grid of letters and letter combinations, try to assemble words meeting the specific requirements of each level. There's a lot more to it than that, but it's a decent enough synopsis. Some levels are very challenging but you can always bail out of them, restart, and hope for a better random set of letters to make things a bit more doable. The game's a bit short but the price was also pretty low so it mostly balances out. It could use an extra achievement or two, or maybe some kind of auto-generated daily puzzle to pad things out, but overall I'm glad I bought it.

if you like word puzzles, you'll enjoy this game