Imagine if a choose-your-own-adventure book met a hexagonal board game, fell in love, and had a child. That child grew up with Dungeons & Dragons as an uncle who always came to family dinner. This is the playground that is Wildermyth. From the start, you can see this isn’t your regular tactical RPG. Wildermyth is a character-driven, procedurally-generated tactical RPG, designed to help you tell your wildest stories. Like the best tabletop roleplaying experiences, Wildermyth gives you choices and answers your every decision with consequences that drive your characters forward. Wildermyth is a character-driven, procedurally-generated tactical RPG, designed to help you tell your wildest stories. Like the best tabletop roleplaying experiences, Wildermyth gives you choices and answers your every decision with consequences that drive your characters forward. A myth-making tactical RPG, Wildermyth empowers the player to tell a whimsical story of beauty, magic, and strife reminiscent of tabletop roleplaying games. Lead a band of heroes as they grow from reluctant farmers into unique, legendary fighters. Battle unexpected threats and uncover the secrets of this dark, whimsical fantasy world.
A collection of advices to serve as complements to your first campaigns. Welcome to the Yondering Lands.
Starting a New Game
Your first campaign
I strongly recommend starting with the Age of Ulstryx campaign in the J.K. Rowling difficulty level. It's a 3-chapter story which includes cleverly introduced tutorials.
If you need any help or reminder with the basics, visit the How to Play page in the main menu. For further information, hit the links to the official wiki and the Wildermyth Combat Basics video in the top right corner of the How to Play page.
Hooks and passive bonus
When creating a new character, visit the History part of their character sheet. Their procedurally-generated origin story grants them a set of 2 to 3 hooks (which affect story choices) and a set of passive bonus.Example of an origin story (left) and its hooks and passive stat bonus (right).
Since you can randomize the whole character sheet as many times as your patience allows, you may try your luck to get some nice passive bonus. This optimization is certainly not mandatory though it can prove useful if you play with a high difficult setting. For instance Hunters will benefit from a good Range Accuracy and Mystics from a good Potency. A Retirement Age bonus will allow your heroes to be active during 4 or 5 chapters instead of typically 3, which can make a real difference in long campaigns.
Know Your Enemies
Foes are divided into (currently) five different factions.
Deepists
Human cultists living in deep caves. Have a strange fetish for horned headwear. Eaters of terrible breakfast. Masters of terrible humour. If you see them aboveground, it means trouble.
Drauven
Quarrelsome dragon-like creatures living in a society divided in rival clans and strict castes. Cultural affinity for all things brutal: weaponsmithing, duels, warfare, slavery, sacrifices. Bad neighbors.
Gorgons
Ancient, towering tentacled monsters leading warped beasts out of the woods. Spread corruption, disease, and ultimately silence. Presented in details in the campaign Age of Ulstryx.
Morthagi
The Clockwork Dead. Golems built of bones and cogs. Steampunk skeletons, if you prefer. Presented in details in the campaign The Enduring War.
Thrixl
Weird, elegant beings mixing insectoid and reptilian features. Definitely magic.
And more to come
At least one minotaur-like folk has been spotted in a dev stream. Best not wear anything red in your next travels.
Campaign Mechanics
Legacy Points economy
Legacy Points (LP) play a core role in the balancing of your campaign. You can gain 2 LP the first time that you liberate a region by driving out the local monsters. You can't get extra LP if the region falls back under monster control and you liberate it again.
You can spend your LP by:
- Recruiting a new hero (3 LP) or a legacy hero (4+ LP). Tip: the Bard passive skill for warriors reduces the cost of recruiting by 1 LP, in addition to bonus to overland chores and combat. A great skill if selected early in your campaign.
- Cancelling an incursion (5 LP). Incursions are invasions from a monster-occupied region to an adjacent liberated region.
- Cancelling a timed calamity (1 LP).
Calamities
Cards added to the deck of an enemy faction. They either introduce a new monster or upgrade an existing one, such as this drauv stump here.
A calamity card is drawn at the end of each fight whether you won or lost. In addition, extra calamities are triggered at timed intervals depending on your overland campaign difficulty level. These extra calamities can be dispelled by spending Legacy Points, unlike the automatic post-fight calamities.
Charisma and TenacityThese character stats factor passively into story choice rolls, like a skill check in a classic RPG. The higher the stat, the higher the chance of a positive outcome. Positive outcomes go from temporary stats bonus in your next fight to opportunities to get a permanent change to your character in a theme event.
Theme events
Random events can be triggered when scouting a new region, arriving to or departing from a battle site, or simply travelling the world with a specific personality (e.g. leader) or history hook (e.g. dreamer).
Rivers and mountains
Are your heroes unable to reach a region of the map because a river or a mountain range is blocking their way?
You can click on a section of the river to build a permanent bridge above it, or click on the mountains to dig a pass through. Warning: these are time-consuming actions. You'd best travel around the blocker if it's physically possible.
Combat and Weapons Stats
Make an informed decision when you find or craft a new piece of equipment.
Potency vs Warding
- Potency adds extra damage to Interfuse spells. Only useful to Mystics.
- Warding cancels some damage from fire and enemy magical attacks. Beneficial to any Hero.
Shred vs Pierce
- Shred destroys a fixed amount of the target's armor on every attack, down to zero. Typical of axes. Survivors get their full armor back at the end of the mission.
- Pierce ignores a fixed amount of the target's armor. Note that hunters' attacks from grayplane always ignore all armor.
Wield
A weapon stat noted from 1 to 5 and affecting the target's chance to dodge:
- Attacks are +35% easier to dodge (most hammers).
- Attacks are +15% easier to dodge (some staves).
- No positive or negative impact (most axes, swords and staves).
- Attacks are -15% easier to dodge (most spears and bows).
- Attacks are -35% easier to dodge (most wands, daggers and dueling swords).
Stunt
Critical hit chance. A successful stunt applies double damage to physical attacks or other bonuses to elemental attacks.
The nature and intensity of a relationship between two of your heroes can improve their stunt chance:
- Two friends get a +5 to +25 stunt chance when positioned side-by-side.
- A rival gets a one-time +25% to +100% stunt chance bonus when their rival lands a stunt hit.
Speed
Dictates how many tiles a character can move per action. Great for hit-and-run tactics.
Combat Tips
No enemy in sight
Be wary of unseen dangers. For instance, don't exhaust all of your movement to dash into unknown territory, as you might not be able to fall back to safety. In the same spirit, opening a door is something which should be done early in your turn, when most of your heroes can react to whatever is lurking behind the door.
Around an enemy
- Always minimize the number of enemies that will be able to attack you on their turn. Set up strangeholds with doorsteps and Mystics props such as fire to slow or weaken the enemy.
- Hover your mouse over an enemy and hold the shift key to see their move range. Make sure your characters stay out of reach, unless it's part of your battle plan.
Recommended for You:
- All Wildermyth Guides!
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This Wildermyth review provides my experience playing this fascinating game over a ten-hour period. I played Beta 0.12+106, Pixle Masterson.
Wildermyth is a new character-driven, tactical roleplaying game developed by Worldwalker Games. The game is currently in Steam Early Access.
Preface
Two people.
Two talented people.
Anne Austin, artist.
Nate Austin, programmer.
Together,
they are Worldwalker Games,
a small, independent game company
from Austin, Texas.
Together,
this husband and wife developed a rich,
character-driven, turn-based
roleplaying game.
That’s wild!
That’s Wildermyth.
Two Wildermyth Features
Two features set Wildermyth apart from other party-based RPGs with tactical, X-COM-like combat: 1) the visual/aesthetic choices and 2) procedurally-generated characters with depth.
1) Visual/Aesthetic Choices
Visually, Wildermyth is a beautiful game. The hand-painted 2D character models and scenery are cartoonish and welcoming. In fact, the dialogue and story are told with comic book panels.
Combat takes place in glowing, papercraft dioramas.
Both approaches to the visual style are uncommon and comforting. It’s like being a child again, exploring the public library. Picking up your comic book subscription at the hobby store. Placing miniatures on a grid. The aesthetics of the game make it approachable for all ages.
Much effort was put into making the How to Play information concise and visually appealing. The screen provides information on most of the key subjects.
2) Character Depth
Characters are procedurally-generated. They have their own background history, personality, and appearance. This adds greater depth to the interplay between the characters and the narrative events. Read the background story of each character on the History screen, for example. As you play, the game appends to the story.
On my first playthrough, the game only added one adventure to one character. I think there is room for improvement. The game could catalog more adventures.
Customize the appearance of each character at any time, if you want.
Characters age and retire. They change appearance based on strange and dangerous adventures. For example, one character may have blue, Gorgonoid stone on half her face. Another character one may have a blue gem for an eye. Still another may simply lose a hand.
Each character has his or her own personality. Indeed, on the Aspects page is a list of every aspect of the character with modifiers and brief descriptions for each.
Character Relationships
Characters form relationships as you play. For example, two of my female characters had a romantic relationship. Nothing was explicitly said about this in dialogue. In fact, the developers stick to the show-don’t-tell rule of story-telling. You get hints they are fond of each other. They are together in scenes. Other than that, you need to look at their Relationships screen to see they are romantic.
In one sad scene, the two women must say goodbye because one was leaving the group to study as a Woodland Seer. They handled it quite well, I thought.
Characters start with one of three main classes: Warrior, Hunter, Mystic. Characters level up and gain new active or passive skills. As you play they will gain armor and weapon upgrades. Materials gained from clearing territories and winning battles are used to craft better gear. Looted and crafted gear displays on the paper characters. That’s a nice touch.
Rising Threat
Everything done on the overland map moves the clock forward some. If you build up defenses for a territory the clock moves ahead. If you build a bridge to reach another territory the time advances. What does that mean? Basically, the threat of enemy calamity cards, infestations, and incursions increases.
Wildermyth Wiki
No matter what you do or how long you take there will always be a rising threat of incursions, otherwise, the game would not end. Your actions can only slow the impending threat.
Keep Going
Delaying the inevitable is basically the crux of the game (as is real life, right?). Scout new territories. Fight battles to control the new territories and obtain Legacy points. Use Legacy points to recruit new heroes, build new stations, and cancel calamities and incursions. Also, for efficiency, split your heroes to handle multiple issues at once.
On my first playthrough, I didn’t pay attention much to the rising threat. As I said, there is only so much you can do. I did what I wanted. I kept my team, Ruse’s Reavers, together. They built bridges, dug in defenses, and entered battles together. I couple of times I used Legacy points to stop enemy calamity cards. However, once I saw that the points were needed for recruiting new members I held onto them.
Tactical Turn-Based Combat
After a territory is scouted, the characters can choose to undertake an assault mission to gain control. A mission is constructed. Each character has a turn and then each enemy goes. Abilities have point values and characters use their abilities until turn points are gone.
I like that combat has modifiers for flanking, adjacency (called, “walling”), and cover (partial and full).
Warriors get an overwatch ability, called “Guardian.”
Hunters have a Silkstep ability, which allows them to enter the Grayplane, becoming invisible. In the Grayplane, hunter attacks ignore enemy armor.
Mystics have the Interfuse ability, which allows them to interfuse with an object on the battlefield (a free action), and then use an associated ability against an enemy. For example, if a mystic interfuses with a wooden object, she gains Splinterblast. The Splinterblast ability explodes a selected object in a blast of splinters at the True Gorgon.
Don’t Judge By Size
Because of the small, papercraft battlefield, the combat space is intimate. That means that most encounters are fairly short with three to eight enemies. The combat seems simple. However, characters have few health points and a single enemy turn can change the outcome. Do not be lulled into thinking each battle is easy. Take a breath before each move to review your abilities/options and make the best decision for that turn.
Early Access Issues
Later, around the seven-hour mark of my first game, a harrowing battle ensued in which my two mystics got their magics hung up. Each mystic interfused with a battlefield object but was unable to use the related attack skill or Withdraw the connection. I can’t say if this was due to my misunderstanding of the game or a bug. These mystics were my strongest ranged fighters who could not respond to the wave of slobbering and heavy-footfall threats. That battle felt unfair. I wondered if the Withdraw action worked at all. Earlier, I had tried the action several times and it did not work as I thought it should.
Something In The Woods Wildermyth Song
Unfortunately, that same battle, my fighter injured his legs in Corrupted Ground and fled–hobbling, ostensibly–for his life.
What else can I say? Oh, the Raccoons are bastards. They throw thorns of crystallized fluid! Best to take them out first, if possible.
Replayability
The procedurally-generated characters, territories, battle maps, story events, and enemies truly offer great replayability value.
You can add your favorite heroes to a roster of legends and recruit them in later playthroughs.
There is so much in Wildermyth that many playthroughs are required to see most of the game. I’m sure mods will also extend it even further.
Conclusion
Wildermyth is a wonderful game from a small indie game studio. The comic book story events and papercraft battle scenes are beautiful and make it approachable for both young teens and adults. The turn-based tactics and character development has real depth. In fact, the character development adds to the emergent narrative and emotional experience. It is reminiscent of games like Rimworld, Crusader Kings 2, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which have character traits, moods, and preferences.
As described above, I did run into a couple of issues with the game that hopefully will be fixed before release.
I recommend this game for players that appreciate character depth, and fans of party-based, turn-based tactics games (that respect your time).
Wildermyth Guide
I was able to learn the basics of gameplay fairly quick and there are many nuances to grasp in later playthroughs. It’s great to have an excellent, approachable game with procedural content generation and all the gameplay benefits it can provide, without being overly repetitive or the least bit bland.
Genre: Turn-based RPG
Developer: Worldwalker Games LLC
Publisher: Worldwalker Games LLC, WhisperGames
Release State: Early Access Beta
Release Date: 2020?
Current Price: $19.99 on Steam
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Review Version: Beta 0.12+106 Pixle Masterson
Review Platform: Windows 10 PC
Thanks for reading this Wildermyth review! The devs are busy working toward the 1.0 release. Wildermyth will likely release this Spring 2020. Wishlist it on Steam.
Does this game look interesting to you? Have you played Wildermyth some already? If so, what has been your experience? Let me know in the comments below.
Wildermyth Transformations
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