It’s often said that the pen is mightier than the sword—now, that’s an assertion usually made by people who haven’t been stabbed before, but in the world of Leximan, a charming little indie pseudo-RPG about smashing words together scribblenauts-style, it’s a cosmic truth.
Penned by Knights of Borria, an indie developer three people strong, Leximan clearly borrows from the same grimoire as games like Undertale—in that its RPG stylings are mostly a vehicle for funny jokes and kitschy minigames.
In it, you play Leximan—an orphan wizard holding the Lexicon (you know, like words): A book that spouts word fragments you need to piece together to solve problems. Problems such as, but not limited to:
- A muscle wizard who wants to get swole.
- A man named Dave who has been on fire for 27 minutes.
- A librarian who is upset that you knocked a bunch of books over.
- Making a potion.
- A man named Dave who is constantly morphing into non-Dave shapes. Dave goes through a lot in this game.
This mechanic is, in the hour I spent fiddling about with it, mostly a vehicle for charming little gags. To cool down a potion, I invoked the word “borean” and proceeded to teleport both a pine tree and a confused viking from the icy north into the pot—meanwhile, an irate viking had the wind knocked out of their sails when I cast “boing” and proceeded to bounce with wizardly gusto.
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Alas, unlike a game like Undertale, Leximan doesn’t quite do enough with its battle system to keep it from being more than a game of loose word association—and while the absolute hooliganry you get up to is cute, it gets a little rote. Imagine Undertale’s befriending systems without the bullet hell interludes, and you’ve got a good idea of Leximan already.
Luckily there’s some other neat stuff going on—when you’re exploring the Academy Elementia, you can type overworld spells at the drop of a wizard’s hat to dig up secrets. The game also makes an effort to break up its somewhat samey battles by introducing minigames—for example, after entering “The Suspiciously Large Room”, I found myself thrown into a Vampire Survivors send-up, fending off a bunch of flames with myself, my potion-making ally, an orbital Dave and a ghost dog.
I’m not sure Leximan’s the next big indie hit—but it’s a playful enough effort at a low enough price point of $15 (£12.80), with the typical Steam introductory offer knocking that cost down a smidge, that I’d give it a whirl if any of the silliness quoted above appeals to you.