I bet you can’t beat Baikoh, fellow human. I tried and here’s my experience.

In this game, players assemble words within waves of letters to score points. If the letters pile up enough, the game ends and you walk away with the points you scored. The goal is to break your high score, amongst other bonuses including breaking the “Best Word” record.

In some game modes, you’re either on a timer, or dealing with huge blocks to spam-click and destroy, or putting up with tick-tock bombs that can end the game. To compensate, you can choose different badges with abilities to make winning easier. You can easily sink hours into the game.

The sleek user interface was my love at first sight. Every touch is tactile; not a single pixel lagged in response. And how the letters look serve an intended purpose; consonants are squared, while vowels are circled. This way, your eyes won’t have to dart around as much when searching for your word’s letters. It’s not only ingenious, it’s also a one-of-a-kind design choice that you won’t find in other word games.

The minimalist presentation carries a lot of heart and soul in its make. Considering how perfect it looks and feels, it made a direct impact on how my first experience was with it. I never felt confused about what to do, what to click, how to play or where to go.

What sets Baikoh apart from most word games is how the game itself is a breathing character; the app breaks the fourth wall and addresses you, often mocking your capacity as the game’s player. While I appreciate the creativity, it does err on the side of annoyance after a while, considering it often mocks you during win-loss conditions too. This last bit is a nitpick, however, and is up to the player’s taste.

Now, it’s an enjoyable word game but it does have some quirks. The challenge ramps up too fast, lowkey punishing you for advancing. One of the two ways to offset the challenge is to rapidly create three and four letter words. However, that quickly drowns
out the fun element in the game.

The other would be to create a mish-mash of power-ups to aid yourself when in a tight spot. After all, the main goal is to get a high score, and not necessarily score with the best vocabulary. But being a word game, I wish it were the opposite.

An interesting highlight is how the game respects player agency. It’s unexpected, refreshing and a little risky… but swear words are acceptable vocabulary.

So if you want to drop the F-bomb to score +11 points, go right ahead. Baikoh doesn’t mind.

VERDICT: The game could use a tune-up gameplay wise, but many casual word games should take a page from Baikoh’s impeccable visual and tactile design. I give it an 8.5 out of 10.