Wordhoard

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  Wordhoard's app icon: an expressive serif W in the game's monochrome style.

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  Trace words against the clock and build a scoring combo up to 5x. Real iPhone gameplay, with no device frame.

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  Review your score and discoveries. Wordhoard Plus reveals the complete missed-word list.

Inspiration

Wordhoard grew out of my love of Countdown, the TV show, and offline games. I love the challenge of looking at a handful of letters and finding a word before time runs out. I wanted to bring that feeling to a game I could take anywhere and keep playing without an internet connection.

Offline play is central to Wordhoard. Open play can be played indefinitely offline, with new rounds whenever you want. You do not have to wait for the next daily puzzle or reconnect to keep playing.

What it does

Trace letters against the clock to discover words. Consecutive correct words of three letters or more build a scoring combo up to ×5. Marked rare letters add ×2 or ×3 word multipliers, and words using the whole board earn 10 base points before multipliers. Wrong guesses reset the combo, so each round balances speed, accuracy, and discovery.

The daily offers easy, medium, and hard boards with identical letters for everyone. Open play lets you choose a board size and letter mix, then keep playing new rounds indefinitely offline. Friends share a QR code carrying the board settings so their phones can deal identical rounds without an internet connection. Daily leaderboards compare points and longest words, with fastest discovery breaking longest-word ties.

How we built it

Wordhoard uses Expo, React Native, and React Native Skia, with a Cloudflare Worker for daily boards and leaderboard services. RevenueCat manages Wordhoard Plus purchases and entitlements. Players can play free with ads or buy Plus to remove ads and reveal the complete missed-word list. Purchases do not give a scoring advantage.

The interface borrows the visual rhythm of a newspaper: an expressive masthead, ruled sections, restrained monochrome colour, and typography that separates words from scores. The opening wordmark moves into the header, while letter tracing and word feedback keep the focus on play. Light and dark editions share the same visual hierarchy.

Challenges we ran into

A major challenge was making navigation and game-state changes feel fluid without slowing down a short round. We iterated on slide and fade transitions, the opening animation, and the header controls while preserving the original fonts. Another challenge was ensuring paid players never see ads while purchase status is loading or being restored. The release includes safeguards and regression tests for those entitlement changes.

Accomplishments that we are proud of

A small game with several reasons to return: shared daily boards, scoring combos, rare-letter opportunities, custom rounds, and offline friends play. The visual treatment stays consistent across the app and website, and Plus supports the game without selling an advantage.

What we learned

Small details matter in a short game. Clear word feedback, responsive transitions, and dependable purchase handling all shape how a round feels. Iterating on real device recordings helped us judge the experience as a whole.

What's next for Wordhoard

Use feedback from players to keep refining motion, clarity, and the balance of short rounds, while building on daily challenges and friendly competition.

Built With

• cloudflare
• expo.io
• react-native
• revenuecat