Letter Storm First Test

I just tested Letter Storm with some groups. I came away surprised. Let me explain what I especially liked and also what was the biggest surprise I got from testing Letter Storm.

The game

Game mechanics are very easy. Players see circles of different colors on the big screen. Each circle has a letter on it. Same color circles can be used to form a word. The more letters there are in the word, the more complicated the word is, so if you guess it you get more points.

The circles start to automatically rearrange themselves. In the beginning they are all mixed up, but then after a few movements they will be grouped by color and at some point also the theme is displayed. So it gets easier and easier to guess.

Words or themes

There are a bunch of pre-made word packs of different themes. If you want to test out the game or run an instant game you can use those. Some of the default packs are pretty tough, so be warned. Also while the game user interface can be in any language, the default word packs are in English.

Luckily you can create your own word packs. With the help of AI. These can be focused on your group’s interest or even your event theme. Naturally they can be in your preferred language and they can be local. I, for example, asked AI to make the Finnish Rivers, Finnish Cities and Finnish Lakes all in the Finnish language. If you want to put very specific info about your groups in it the AI won’t be able to help, but you can do it manually. For example in one of the games I wanted to use the people’s hobbies that were in the room.

Playing

With small groups (less than 6 participants) it is best to play individually. One team, one person. I would say that for some people guessing the words from random clouds of letters can be quite challenging, but the game progresses itself, rearranges letters, gives thematic hints so when you get into flow, it is very rewarding.

The coolest thing ever is how well the game scales to larger groups. I was hesitant to use it in a get-together, but turns out it just works. The default mode of playing is in teams and by default 5 teams are premade. You can add teams or delete them. Multiple persons can connect to the team and team gets a score when any team-member guesses the word.

Now, suddenly it is a team exercise, team members can divide the word each member focuses on etc. Also if any member of your group guesses wrong, they can lower the team score very fast. I would say 5 teams for 20-25 participants who all join with their phones, works really well. More participants, make more teams.

Some screenshots

This screenshot shows how the “table” looks when the game is started. Pretty tough, no?

This screenshot shows the movement of circles after a while. Nobody has answered.

After few seconds, still no answers, but theme is now revealed. Can you guess already?

After a few seconds yet. Now the grouping is much clearer and everybody is well aware of the theme. Now everybody probably sees some answers?

Now they are clearly anagrams that should be possible to decrypt if you focus.

So here no player still answers, but now the system starts revealing the answers for some words. Still possible to guess others.

If you did not figure anything out, do not be too hard on yourself. These are all in Finland 🙂

However…

And this is the coolest part, and most surprising. Not all team members have to be connected using phones. The game still works even if they stay offline and help out the team by telling and yelling. That means that host can make hundreds of people working together at the same game. If any participant has trouble connecting then they do not have to connect to the game. It is enough if they are with the team and pay attention to what happens on the screen.

Honestly, I thought that Letter Storm is very limited on how big groups it will work for, but the first tests proved me wrong.

One hint that I believe will be useful for anyone running it. The more teams and people you have in the game the harder you can make the words. There is just so much more intelligence thrown at the problem than with few people.

As with everything in GFC right now, also Letter Storm is experimental, so it is really valuable if you could test and give your feedback as well. Let us know what are your top tips for Letter Storm. Start your Letter Storm here