# Letterlike — user reviews > 100 indexed App Store user reviews of Letterlike by Ronald Lee, rated 4.70/5 from 122 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/letterlike/id6737422986/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/letterlike/id6737422986.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 103 · 4★ 11 · 3★ 4 · 2★ 0 · 1★ 4 ## What do users think of Letterlike? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🎉 Addictive and fun gameplay - 👍 Clever combination of Scrabble and roguelike - 🚀 Challenging but rewarding progression system - 💎 Satisfying upgrade and customization options - 🕹️ Enjoyable for short bursts or long sessions **Cons** - 🐛 Occasional difficulty spikes and unbalanced runs - 🗣️ Annoying AI opponent trash talk - 💰 Diamonds could be more reasonably priced **Commonly reported bugs** - Crashes or freezes on some devices - Inconsistent letter distribution **Most requested features** - Save progress and resume games - Leaderboards and social features - More visual customization options - In-game dictionary or word definitions ## Newest reviews (15 of 100) ### 4/5 — Good, but please make one small change (or two) *2026-03-14* This is one of the better word-based roguelikes I’ve seen in my day. For one thing, it isn’t just a Scrabble-based one; if anything it reminds me more of Quiddler. While part of the appeal to a game like Balatro is the appealing art on the jokers, I admire the simplicity here. The different types of letter tiles all buff your score, but do so in ways that affect your strategy. Also, I don’t inherently hate the idea of the game starting out nigh-impossible, because you get gems rather quickly and I’ve already gotten to 10 letter slots after playing for only three or so days. The rate at which you get gems (even when losing!) trivializes that initial “hill.” However, there are a few things which would make the game a bit better. For one, switching out the “Q” tiles for “Qu” tiles would make them easier to use. Also, just for funsies, a few double-letter tiles (CH, ST, ER, etc.) you could add to your deck would be nice (unless they exist in a later bag I haven’t got). And my main complaint? The thing that knocked it down to three stars? The SECRET LEVEL. Now, don’t get me wrong; I don’t hate a “secret” stage when implemented well. But the way it’s done here actually made me frustrated. Rather than being an optional mechanic or anything of the sort, it’s just a sixth level appended to the endgame that you don’t have time to prepare for. Don’t show me five levels and then throw a sixth one at me once I’ve finally managed to reach the end. Either give us the option to play without these “secrets” (bait-and-switches), or have the fifth level be the OFFICIAL end and have a little menu say something like “Congratulations! Would you like to play a harder bonus round for more prizes?” That sort of “high risk/high reward” thing could turn some people on to them. Overall, this is still a great game, and I’m not even complaining about difficulty. There’s a difference between a hard game and a game that throws a curveball at you when you’re already at home plate. (P.S. Different color themes? :3) I just want to say as well that this is one of my first app reviews. I hope I haven’t been too harsh! Bye! ### 4/5 — Fun game, the UI could be improved *2025-12-30, version 16.10* I only just got the game but I love the concept, I loved balatro and I love word games. The game would really benefit from a good soundtrack, and for me at least, the UI and menus just feel confusing and not as intuitive as I had hoped. Other than that it’s great and I hope it’s development continues. ### 4/5 — Excellent Game, Achievements are Buggy *2025-07-03* This is my favorite word game out of the many apps I’ve tried over the years. It’s complex yet intuitive and has a wide variety of difficulty settings and items to unlock. Really awesome concept and very addicting once you figure out your strategy. I would love to give 5 stars but it has a few major bugs. The achievements for completing difficulty levels and bags do not unlock, even when I have clearly completed them. Also, I have completed all 3 card unlocks for circular, palindrome, alphabetical, and reverse alphabetical… but the corresponding bags are still locked. It’s really disappointing because I would love to complete all the achievements and unlock all the bags. I hope they fix this issue soon and I would gladly change my review to 5 stars - seriously, this is my favorite word game app. **Developer response:** Hi there! I'm really sorry that's happened. Do you think you can email me at hello@puzzlelike.com? I can take a look at your data and see what's going on! ### 4/5 — Love it so far but *2025-04-04* Love this game so much already, but it is quite difficult in the beginning. I’ve put in quite a few hours and yet to beat the starter bag. Also you should change it so when you can pick a reward you can somehow read about what they are. Some of them I don’t know what they are and I pick them hoping it’ll pop up a screen explaining what they are but instead it just picks them. Thank you for making this! It’s great. **Developer response:** Hi there! Thank you so much! I'm actually going to add in a tooltip for the rewards as you mentioned in the next update. Stay tuned! ### 5/5 — These are the tiles you are looking for *2025-03-30* I’ve been playing this game since the very early days and it’s been wonderful seeing the dev respond to feedback. I think my big thing was dark mode in the beginning, and it seemed like once I said something it was added almost overnight. Crazy! I will definitely be picking up Letterlike on Steam too. Thanks for adding cloud saves for cross platform support! Really appreciate all your work on this unique and amazing game! ### 5/5 — Join the daily challenge! *2025-03-22, version 15.1* I need more people to dominate and humiliate (think of me like one of the in game characters but real) now please play the daily sweethearts so I can beat you all!! Great game, been playing pretty much since day 1 when dev shared release news on Reddit. Back to 5 stars. Dev replied and explained daily challenge are indeed random. Just been a few straight days of miserable seeds I guess. Brand new update looks promising blocks and shiny’s!! ### 5/5 — Wonderful game *2025-03-22, version 15.1* You’ll love this game if you enjoy Scrabble, Balatro, or Both! ### 5/5 — Love the game plus game suggestions *2025-03-16* Hello, I was wondering if you can make some games. For example, I was wondering if you can make some trivia games or possibly if you can can you please add a daily gift pack to wear you get lives every day somehow or something like that and also if you can, can you please also add point tripler where are you triple the points what I mean by that is when you triple the points For example ranges from 600. It’ll go all the way to 2400 points something like that. Also, instead of having people go to the homepage when they miss and they don’t beat the score. I was wondering if you could also have people use the gems that they have so that way they can Revive their game. Thank you so much. Have a great day. ### 5/5 — Very good game *2025-03-15* I’m updating my review to be five stars. Thank you, developer, for your recent reply about a bug I experienced where it showed a target score of zero and then wouldn’t let you beat it. I redownloaded the game to give it another try, and it seems to be working fine now. That must have just been some weird glitch. This is a great game for a great price, with no ads or IAP. I appreciate the small file size and that it saves progress too. I’m thankful for good indie developers who produce a good product and monetize fairly. I recommend this game, it’s one of the best word games out there. And I love the minimalistic design and all the options in settings. Thank you! **Developer response:** Hi there! I'm sorry that happened! Would you be able to email me at hello@playletterlike.com and I can assess the bug? I've never heard or seen this happen before so I'd really appreciate learning more! Thank you! ### 5/5 — Einfach Top! Balatro mit Buchstaben *2025-03-09* Das Spiel ist absolut! Macht definitiv süchtig. Eine Mischung aus Wortpuzzle und Roguelike. Quasi ein Balatro mit Buchstaben an Stelle der Karten. Ist zwar Englisch aber es ist absolut nicht schwer Englische Wörter zu finden - ganz im Gegenteil - so lernt man sogar noch etwas dazu. ### 5/5 — Umwerfend!!! *2025-03-03* Komme nicht los davon. Das Konzept ist so gut durchdacht und fantastisch umgesetzt. 10/10 ### 5/5 — Refreshingly Good *2025-02-25* Letterlike is a refreshing take on word games, blending classic spelling mechanics with roguelike progression. Each run is procedurally generated, offering unique challenges, upgrades, and even boss battles that test both vocabulary and strategy. With no ads or in-app purchases, it’s a premium experience that rewards skill and creativity. For word game enthusiasts looking for depth and replayability, Letterlike delivers. ### 5/5 — Fun, clever rogue-like Scrabble game *2025-02-24* An entertaining and challenging game that combines Scrabble with RPG-style fun. Unlock power-ups to give you more letters, multipliers, and so on. ### 5/5 — Great! *2025-02-24* Great game so far. A german version at one point would be great. Is there anything planned? ### 5/5 — Super fun! *2025-02-23, version 14.3* This game is incredible! Very similar to Balatro but with a new premise! Endless hours of fun and extremely addictive. The developer is also extremely open to feedback and constantly making the game better. Give it a shot, it’s worth it! ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Unwinnable. Avoid. *2025-08-01, version 16.10* Love word games, hate this one. Can’t even win a round. What’s the point of an unwinnable game? ### 1/5 — disappointing game *2025-04-24* The game itself is unique. unfortunately haven’t been able to get past level number 5 where you have to collect over 70,000 points with just two words on the final stage of the Tutorial ..? So many occasions when I’m given 6 letters such as NNNNII Only to discard them and then get another set of letters which are unable to make a word Have now given up **Developer response:** Hi there! I'm sorry you're having trouble. Have you tried playing a New Game? Each game is randomized so you won't encounter the same final level / letter combinations. Let me know how it goes! ### 1/5 — Potential, but bad UX *2025-01-31, version 12.3* This is a game with a ton of potential. But it’s held back by its UX, which makes the game unplayable. Text is too small, layout is unintuitive, and iconography isn’t consistent ### 2/5 — Needs a lot more improvement *2024-11-29* The concept carries over from Balatro. What made that game appealing and addictive was the charming presentation and game mechanics. Please work on UI and making the game more beautiful. At this point, it looks unpolished compared to the original inspiration. Keep it up and update us with great visuals. Crossing finger for the dev team to hit it out of the park. **Developer response:** Hello! In the latest version, we did update the UI and animations. Old response: Thank you for the feedback! I am updating the UI in the next update! Though the goal is to keep it as clean and simple as possible (more like tabletop letter games) so it won’t look like Balatro. I love Balatro’s style of course and it works there but I don’t think it would make sense to copy it (nor would I want to!). ### 2/5 — Disappointed *2024-11-13* I am very disappointed after trying to play this game. Time after time I’m faced with six consonants that are impossible to form a word. Surely each stage should contain letters that can form at least one word, albeit of only two letters? As far as I’m concerned it’s been a waste of £3. 😡 Michael Crane **Developer response:** Hi Michael! Sorry about that! I followed up to your email but hadn’t received a response. Were you able to use the discards? The letters are randomly generated (just like other tabletop word games) and some runs are unlucky in that sense. But if you use the discards, you shouldn’t run into that problem very often. Let me know! ### 3/5 — Fun game, but a bit buggy and light on content *2025-12-09* Tough to be compared to Balatro, but you’re kind of asking for it. Far less variety of buffs and opportunity to discover synergy between them. Base difficulty is quite easy. And I’ve just found myself scoring NaN points each word until I ran out and failed the run. Nice concept, and fun for at least a few hours. Don’t regret the purchase, but I don’t see myself getting hooked on it either. ### 3/5 — I’m sure this will be five stars at some point. *2025-05-05* Great premise, Balatro meets Scrabble, no regrets buying it, but it still feels very much alpha early release. I was deep into a run and played HAIRPIN, playing this word somehow knocked my points down to 0 for that round. I thought maybe there were some card dynamics that had worked against me, but i check my cards and nothing. The word I played did not even give me a single point and I lost with 0 points. **Developer response:** Hi there! I'm really sorry that happened. Would you be able email me at hello@playletterlike.com? I'd love to know what happened so I can fix it! ### 3/5 — OK but bugs break it *2025-03-02* I was liking it until I started a level where it said I needed 0 points to beat that round, and when I beat that round it said I lost even though I obviously had way more than zero points. Since I can’t progress, I deleted the game. It’s not ready for prime time. **Developer response:** Hi there! I'm sorry that happened! Would you be able to email me at hello@playletterlike.com and I can assess the bug? I've never heard or seen this happen before so I'd really appreciate learning more! Thank you! ### 3/5 — Shallow, needs balancing *2024-12-18* Scrabble meets Balatro. A promising idea, but falls short of its inspiration. Here are some of the issues I think need addressing: 1. No deck-building mechanics. You start with the standard scrabble bag and you keep it the entire run. A method to obtain more blanks and “stack the deck” in your favor is an obvious solution, but I admit this is tougher to implement with scrabble. I know there are other starter bags but I’ve yet to unlock one for reasons I’ll discuss later. 2. Some of the modifiers (Jokers) are essentially not viable due to boss mechanics. Every time I’ve tried to use a +LS/discard build, I’ve inevitably run into a boss that takes all of your discards (and 2 words on top of that??) which is an instant loss. There is no way to avoid this except to get lucky. 3. It is impossible to win when you first start. The game’s roguelike progression is locked behind the acquisition of gems, which you acquire by clearing rounds. You will be very lucky to get 5 in a game at the start and the first upgrade to unlock another (Joker) slot costs 25. I do not think it is mathematically possible to beat the lowest difficulty out of the gate. This is a major design flaw. 4. Continuing from 3, the game is harder and slower than balatro (much more thinking required) but the grind is longer and less rewarding. When I spend 30 minutes on a run that ends not even halfway to a win and I’m rewarded with 5 gems, I do not feel good. You should be given the tools to win from the start (given sufficient skill), and grinding should serve to expand mechanics and strategies rather than allow you to finally win on the lowest difficulty by incrementing numbers. **Developer response:** Hi there! Thank you for your review! I take all feedback very seriously so I am digesting your thoughts. As an update to the update: I was able to beat it with only 6 gems! I was thinking about rebalancing quite a bit but I think the difficulty is okay right now. I will still make some tweaks to some of the initial items (which I think is what made the game harder). And I also decided to work in some deck building mechanics that I think make sense for this game! Won’t be like other games but should add some more fun! As an update to the below: I tried to beat it again with just 7 letters and it's really reallly hard! I must have beaten it in a much earlier version when I was doing a lot of testing. I got super close though! Interestingly, it was some of the most fun I've had with the game! I totally get your point on #3. I don't think I'll change the difficulty though since getting to a point of being able to beat it easily with upgrades is not much of a grind and I want to keep that challenge. Thank you again! To each of your points, I have considered #1 very deeply, and have considered changing the letters, but a lot of the changes didn't feel natural for a game like this. But that's not to say it won't be added in the future! For #2, I think that's the point of the bosses and that's why I provide that information at the start of the level. You should have at least two rounds to pivot! For #3, it is definitely possible to beat with 1 gem to get to 7 letters (as I've done it before!), though it does get much easier once you hit 8 letters. Of course, if you get more upgrades, you should be able to win more often (and venture onto NG+). I started the game with 6 instead of 7 letters because I wanted the player to learn to use at least 1 gem and see how much it can help. For #4, I think the challenge is part of the fun! I do think you do get better at the game even when you lose. I found that once you start getting really good at the game, the gems start stacking almost too quickly. The start should be slower-paced to get that progression - otherwise, any growth won't feel as satisfying. Anyway, thanks again! ### 3/5 — You can never really win or accomplish anything *2024-11-30, version 10.6* I love word games especially new and thought out ones, and I like this one except it pisses me off when I’m on a roll and then I get two words to make 33000 points. That’s not even possible unless you have all the tile slots filled and then maybe, maybe you’ll have a chance. It’s just rigged to a point you can’t go any further no matter what and I really don’t see the purpose of “playing against someone else”. The only time they’re relevant is at the end of the round, you don’t even know what the other “player” is doing to know how to compete against them. You’re just playing against the score and letters they give you. Another thing that’s upsetting is I’ll trade in 2 o’s and a T and I’ll get two o’s and an a. Like come on are you even trying to be random? ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Best word game *2026-03-04, version 16.10* I love word games and I love rogue games. Haven’t found a good new word game in ages. This one I’ve been addicted to. Definitely deserves more attention than it’s gotten! ### 5/5 — Fun game worth the money *2025-11-25* Very fun and more interesting than the typical word games in the app store. Nice to play a game without being bombarded with ads and microtransaction. Some feedback for the dev: 1) there is a bug in the score calculation when you have multiple consecutive bricks. The points are different if you place one brick vs if you place two bricks then remove one despite one brick in both 2) the final stage conditions could use some balancing. The double points one is way harder than many of the others 3) the game flow after a win doesn't make a lot of sense. What is the point of sending back to the normal store and offering tile based rewards when there are no more stages. It's also a bit weird that you are more rewarded when you lose (access to the special store) than when you win (no special store) **Developer response:** Thank you!! Would you be able to email me at hello@puzzlelike.com for more details on the bug? ### 5/5 — An enjoyable little game that makes me realize how bad I am at unscrambling words *2025-07-26* A very fun game that takes clear inspiration from Balatro but is more than unique enough with its mechanics to stand alone as a separate game. I’ve had no bugs or issues with the gameplay and I think the upgrade mechanics are very well done. My English professor showed me this game, so shoutout Mr. Pride ### 5/5 — My favorite word game *2025-05-31* The game is very addicting. The different levels and bags to choose give lots of playtime. No ads!! There some bugs at times but overall runs smooth. They keep updating which I don’t understand the new bricks and blanks I don’t think we needed them I was happy with coins or gems. ### 5/5 — Tough Learning Curve *2025-05-10, version 16.4* Spend 20 minutes getting to the final round only to have the boss nerf all of your perks and leave you with one word to complete the run. Hang in there, it gets better. ### 5/5 — Join the daily challenge! *2025-05-02* I need more people to dominate and humiliate (think of me like one of the in game characters but real) now please play the daily sweethearts so I can beat you all!! Great game, been playing pretty much since day 1 when dev shared release news on Reddit. Brand new update looks promising blocks and shiny’s!! **Developer response:** Hi there! The daily challenges really are a random set of seed, gems, bags, and difficulties. It would be very difficult to predict exactly how each seed performs. Some days will be easier than others by pure chance unfortunately. But I think that's part of the fun! Trying to win with less gems and picking the right strategy is exciting. The previous day's data is saving and I do plan on implementing ways to view past days! If you have would like to discuss more, please email me at hello@playletterlike.com! ### 5/5 — bom *2025-04-21* so é dificil no inicio mas vc vai aprendendo ### 5/5 — Balatro x Scrabble *2025-04-06* Great port of Balatro’s classical elements into the Scrabble world. If you like Balatro and Scrabble at the same time, this is the game for you. Takes a few rounds to get used to the game mechanism and connect the dots with corresponding strategies in Balatro, but overall very good game! One feedback would be more diamonds on each run otherwise unlocking all elements will be like forever. ### 5/5 — Keeps getting better! *2025-04-03, version 15.5* Super fun game!! It’s really cool to see how far this app has come since just a couple of months ago. I can’t wait to see where it goes from here! ### 5/5 — If you like BALATRO and SCRABBLE… wew lawd this is good *2025-03-30, version 15.3* Incredibly fun, complex but inviting. Bopping music. Nothing but good things to say about. Does take some getting used to but once you do, it’s a ton of fun. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-14.*