Because this is a game primarily about spelling words, it is useful to distiguish between a word being written for communication purposes and a word that is being talked about as a word to be spelled, which will be written in ALLCAPS. For most parts of these tutorials, if a word is being spelled, there will either be a screenshot from the game or it will be spelled out using the tiles. However, the all-caps convention is preferred and more convenient in most places, such as the discord server or twitch chat to distinguish words to spell from words in conversations.
The game is primarily mouse-driven, but there are five actions that can be controlled by the keyboard:
There is no way to open the menu or scramble using the keyboard.
Damage in Bookworm works on a combined length and letter rarity system. Longer words are worth more, but words with rare letters also get a boost. Knowing approximately how many "equivalent letters" (number of letters plus any additional bonuses from letters), also called EL in these tutorials, is very important to getting gems and dealing damage to enemies overall. The amount that each letter is worth and when is listed below. Additionally, when talking about damage dealt to enemies, that will usually be done in terms of BH ("Bookworm Hearts"), since the EL and BH are not easily related.
All bronze letters add 0.0 letters to the length of the word.
Silver letters are in two tiers, where some are worth slightly more than the others. These silver letters add 0.25 letters to the length of the word.
These silver letters add 0.5 letters to the length of the word. Notice that the Y will only be +0.5 in level 1.1, before acquiring the Bow of Zyx or the Arch of Xyzzy.
Gold tiles are varied, are a just a catch-all for any amount that gets added more than +0.5. These tiles add +0.75 each.
These tiles add +1.0 each. For X and Z, this only happens in 1.1, just like the silver Y tile, since they get boosted by the Bow and Arch after that. On the other hand, the R only becomes +1.0 once the parrot is acquired.
These tiles add +1.5 each. This is only for 1.2 to 1.7, when you have the Bow of Zyx.
The Qu tile is special in that is it worth +1.75. For all purposes it is considered two letters on one tile, so it can be thought of as a Q worth 1.75 total letters (like a J or K) combined with a free U worth 1.0 total letters. The way that it's in one tile obscures this though.
Once you have the Arch of Xyzzy for 1.8 and beyond, all X's, Y's, and Z's are +2.0 each.
When all letter bonuses are summed together, this gives the EL. Additionally, Bookworm only works with integer numbers of letters when calculating damage, so it must round after calculating the EL of a word. This is rounded with a bias towards rounding up on halves, so a word with an EQ of 8.25 will get rounded down to 8, 8.5 EQ gets rounded up to 9.0. Almost all of the time examples and explanations will be done without rounding the EL at all, both for clarity and simplicity.
These examples are here just to clarify further how the letter bonuses are applied. If the Bow of Zyx, Arch of Xyzzy, or Wooden Parrot are being used, that will be indicated. The tiles that add nothing to the EL are intentionally left out for legibility reasons.
The number of tiles is 7 so:
7 + 0.75 (J) + 0.25 (M) + 0.25 (P) = 8.25 EL which rounds down to 8.
The number of tiles is 10 so:
10 + 0.5 (V) + 1.0 (R) = 11.5 EL which rounds up to 12.
The number of tiles is 5 so:
5 + 2.0 (X) + 1.75 (Qu) + 2.0 (Y) = 10.75 EL which rounds up to 11.
The type of gem is based of the equivalent length a word. However, the gem calculation is done before the game rounds the EL, and the cutoffs for what type of gem is granted based on the length is offset from where the game rounds the EL, so words with different final damages can give the same type of gem. For gems, the EL is always rounded up (constrast damage, which rounds EL normally).
© 2024