Tag Archives: Videogame

This is a little tutorial explaining how to play our first game, the challenging word game NagiQ. Things will be easier if we start with a screenshot of the first level:

First level of NagiQ

Notice there’s a board, with some letters on it. Letter S and letter C. We refer to those starting letters as Mystic Letters.

How to play?

The rules are simple. Form a word (by typing it with your keyboard, or by clicking on the letters of the game’s permanent on-screen keyboard) and place it on the board with your mouse. For instance, type the word ‘star’ or ‘soap’… whatever. When you’re typing the word, the game will show a green verification mark to let you know that it will accept the word you’ve just typed.

I’ve just typed the word ‘soap’. The green verification mark shows the word is accepted by the game.

OK, that’s it for forming words. Now you have to place such word on the board. And the word might be placed horizontally or vertically. Press the SPACE BAR on your keyboard to switch between horizontal and vertical style (alternatively, the on-screen keyboard has a special key for this task, if you prefer to use the mouse.)

Horizontal style.

Vertical style.

Now that the word orientation is chosen, it’s time to place the word on the board. To do so, simply click on a board’s cell. However, there’s a very important rule:

Every new word you want to place on the board must include at least one of the letters ALREADY PLACED on the board.

That’s why our first word can be ‘star’ or ‘soap’, because such words include ‘s’, and our board already has a letter S. We could also start by forming the word ‘car’, because the board also has a letter C. We could also form the word ‘base’, because ‘base’ has an ‘s’. Or the word ‘case’, which has both ‘c’ and ‘s’. Whatever word you form, the important thing to remember is that such word must contain a letter already on the board.

Use your mouse to move your word around the board, and click to place it. You cannot place your word anywhere, though. You have to connect it to a letter already on the board. Simply move your word and ensure that a letter of your word overlaps a matching letter already on the board, e.g, if your word is ‘star’, ensure that the ‘s’ of ‘star’ overlaps the letter ‘S’ already on the board. When the word is well placed, the game will change the cells’ color to green. Then click to finally place your word on the board (Pro tip: you can press ENTER on your keyboard instead of a mouse click.)

And that’s all. Do you remember those Mystic Letters, S and C? Well, in order to win the level you’ll have to place your words properly, to ‘connect’ with ALL the Mystic Letters on the board.

Upcoming boards contain cookies to get hints, and each island of the game offers gameplay variants. But essentially, these are the core rules of NagiQ. Two little details:

1. You cannot connect your new words directly to the Mystic Letters, except for the first word you place on a board. In other words, your first word might connect with any of the Mystic Letters S or C. But after you’ve placed your word, you next words must include letters of the words you’ve placed.
2. Once you use a word, you cannot re-use it on the same board.

Let’s see a commented game to better understand the rules.

First level of NagiQ. Two Mystic Letters: ‘S’ and ‘C’.

We type a new word: ‘cases’. The green verification mark shows it’s a word accepted by the game.

By using the mouse we place our word ‘cases’ so that one ‘s’ of ‘cases’ overlaps the ‘S’ already on the board. If the placement of a word is OK, the tiles’ color changes from red to green.

Click or press ENTER to finally place the word ‘cases’ on the board. The color of the tiles changes to yellow after the word is placed on the board.

We form a new word: ‘rock’.

We want to place it vertically, so we press the SPACE BAR on the keyboard. We can achieve the same effect by clicking the special yellow button on the on-screen keyboard of the game.

We move our word and place it to match and overlap the letter ‘c’ of the word ‘cases’ we’ve just placed on the board.

A new word: ‘peer’. We place it to match and overlap the ‘r’ of ‘rock’.

Now we typed ‘really’. We switch it to horizontal style, and place it to match and overlap the first ‘e’ of ‘peer’.

Finally, we type ‘cool’. We place it to match and overlap the second ‘l’ of ‘really’. A smart move, indeed: this word ‘cool’ allows us to also match and overlap the remaining, unconnected Mystic Letter C. Therefore, after playing ‘cool’ (pun intended) we will connect with Mystic Letter C, and there won’t be any unconnected Mystic Letter on the board. That way the board will be completed.

Well done. After placing ‘cool’, this level is completed.

Combinations are endless. Have fun 🙂