Bonus Post: Marshlight Reviews: Wildermyth - A Video Game Marvel (Patreon)

Foreword

On occasion I will put out these bonus reviews on subjects/games that I have a personal interest in, in particular I will do this if they are linked in some fashion to the main thrust of this patreon. While the content is very heavily focused around Kingdom Death: Monster, I remain a variety gamer/streamer at heart and occasionally during my trawling of the internet for inspiration and ideas I come across real gems. Wildermyth is one of these, it's the current front runner for my game of the year and it is going to take something very special to unseat it from that throne.

Steam Page for the Game:  https://store.steampowered.com/app/763890/Wildermyth/ 

Current status of the game is 10/10 with around 600-700 steam reviews.

About this Game from the Publisher:

 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.

Lead a band of heroes as they grow from reluctant farmers into unique, legendary fighters. Combat unexpected threats and strange monsters across interactive battlefields. Unravel mysteries and share pensive moments in an ever-new fantasy setting that blends hard truths and sacrifice with humor and personal storytelling.

Where does your myth lead? Come help us uncover it!

Reminiscent of tabletop roleplaying, unique heroes are born in unique settings every game. They age, transform, fall in love, disagree, and make harrowing sacrifices.

Each hero brings their own organic history and personality with them, but your choices and combat skills are what decide their paths and outcomes.

All heroes die someday… but you get to hold on to your favorites. Reintroduce them in the next adventure, and over many lifetimes the myths you make will form your own legendary pantheon.

Wildermyth sort of came out of nowhere, it landed in November of 2019 in Early Access without a huge ceremony or much hype, yet it has proven over the few months it has been out to be an incredible game filled with depth, joy and stories. Oh so many stories. Playing Wildermyth during my off time over the past few days has been nothing short of joyous and I have had to reign myself in to avoid over indulging on it and burning out on the game before it releases in full. This game is close to everything I have been looking for in solo play, both when considering a tabletop and video game campaign style game.  Lets delve into it shall we?

What is Wildermyth?

At its heart, Wildermyth is a rogue-lite generational campaign based roleplaying game with tactical "miniatures" style combat. Its designers pitch it as:

"Wildermyth [is] a myth-making tactical RPG. It empowers you to craft iconic characters who grow through deep, rewarding battles and interactive storytelling."

The game it most reminds me of is the 1st Edition Descent Road to Legend experience; at the start of the game, three individuals feel the call to adventure after an attack on their home village makes them realize that something is afoot. Over the next three or five Chapters the story will unfold, with them taking up to arms against the plans of whatever particular threat is encroaching this time.  

They will gain new abilities, weapons, injuries, rivalries, friendships and much more during the journey. With their in game "paper standee" representative reflecting these changes while you play. If your hero gains a magical belt, then it will be around their waist. If they lose a leg, then after recovering they will return with a peg in place. 

This changing and developing appearance of your heroes (who even age with the passage of time) is a huge part of the charm of the game. I have had individuals become touched by the celestial, or gradually turn into a wolfman, and the game offers opportunities for physical and mental changes. At times your heroes may become friends, rivals or even lovers (depending on how the story unfolds) and these can translate to bonuses in combat as rivals seek to outdo each other.

Here is my current collection of "Legacy characters" and you can see the wealth of variation between their appearances at the end of each campaign.

The game allows you to track and record the heroes who achieved the greatest feats of legend. And not only are these heroes held here in a Hall of Fame, but you can bring them back via the Legacy system.

As an example, here is Danyvien

As you can see, the game has tracked Dany's exploits over two campaigns (she is still currently involved in the second one) while also immortalising her appearance at the end of the first campaign (I am interested to see if it updates after I finish her second journey).  

She is a character I've come to greatly enjoy, those two traits in the top left 'Poetic Goofball' combine to create a personality that doesn't take the hardships of the journey too much to heart. She has stolen eggs from giant birds, helped her friends reach the stars and smashed many, many faces. Interestingly, in the second campaign, despite her status as a "Local Legend" she is not even the strongest member of the company. Simply being a solid tank and source of entertainment.

How the Game Plays

So this game takes place over three different mechanics, there is the Overworld Map, where the various parties travel, journeying to different places in order to liberate them, or fortify places that may be attacked. It is also the place where the opposing forces will try and push to take territory back - this mechanic of territory, along with a gradually increasing  power level of the combat threats (more on this below) - that allows the game to force you to make decisions based on time, not just dawdle about building everything in sight and taking your sweet time to explore. 

The Overworld

In some ways, this section is the weakest part of the game, just like in Road to Legend I get what the game is trying to do here, force you to feel like there is some time pressure and requirement to move forward instead of do everything that could be done. However, I would like a mode where you can just sandbox about and experience things. I'm not a fan of this, it was my least favourite part of Road to Legend 1 also, it felt bad to have to go chase off a lieutenant who was doing awful things far away from your current destination, and it has a similar feel here.

Still, the game does have an inbuilt mitigation system that allows you to deal with this, when an "Incursion" triggers, you can choose to spend Legacy points (your currency for recruiting new heroes and cancelling various bad things) in order to stop it. Because everything takes many days to do, travel, building bridges, carving out passages through mountains, fixing up ravaged places and so on, this is often a great option if you just can't spare the time to go shut down the incursion. Those incursions can also create a great sense of pressure and excitement, I had one climactic chapter where I raced to slay the "big boss" against the pressure of a horde that was ravaging the lands. I made the decision to let them ravage while I pushed in at the source of the problem, it felt epic.

The Combat

The entire combat aesthetic of the game is super cute, it uses a square grid with standees to represent the combatants and they slap at each other, waddle about without moving their legs and fall over when they die. 

The heroes are broken into three classes, Warriors who deal melee damage and/or tank, they have a 'guard' ability that lets them reactionary attack opponents who move into an adjacent space, but this can be upgraded/changed in a bunch of different ways. Hunters use bows and stealth to snipe/stab or even lay out traps and the magic users of this setting are unique Mystics who 'infuse' with (cutout standee) scenery and use it to attack, constrict or pin down opponents. Wearing down the scenery as they do so.

Each encounter has the heroes exploring a small "dungeon", opening doors to reveal new areas that may contain monsters, and fighting them, while most objectives are 'kill all the monsters' sometimes you are chasing after spirits, attempting to flee the map or seeking to destroy one particular target before you die to choking fumes. There's already a lot of variation in these scenarios.

The turn based mechanics involve you using a number of actions to do things, depending on the particular heroes abilities you may be able to move and attack; move twice;  enter the greyplane (the stealth mode for hunters); move, infuse with a bench, and explode it on a huge bunch of enemies or perhaps even attack multiple times. There are a wide range of abilities and options, with positioning mattering a great deal (being next to a friendly means you both help each other defend), and ranges for attacks varying (spears have a longer reach than swords, bows longer again).  You can play at the pace you like, taking time to think hard about each move, or just breezing your way through with a wanton carefree attitude (easier to do on the lower difficulties).

The monsters come in a range of different factions, while there will be one faction that represents the main enemies of that particular story, other groups of factions are also involved at times. Here is a sample of the enemies available:

We have the Deepists, a humanoid bunch of cult like cave dwellers. The Druven, scaly lizard men who aspire to become dragons. The Gorgons, who corrupt the natural world with their presence and use the wildlife of the land against you. The Thrixl a dream like bunch who I have not encountered yet and the Morthagi, clockwork relics from a long gone civilisation. You learn more about these factions and their stories as time passes.

Your enemies have an interesting set of mechanics to determine their strength, variety and numbers, as time passes and each time you defeat members of a faction they 'refine their strategies' and gain more cards which are in their decks (shown above in a game in progress). They will get stronger, more numerous, tougher and more varied as time passes, but each faction upgrades individually. So if you encounter some Deepists in a late chapter for the first time, the encounter can be very easy, honestly this is quite cool, there are a lot of encounters in this game and having that variety makes it all feel organic by providing a light breather, especially when the main faction has gotten very strong.

The control system for combat is a little fiddlily, there is no 'undo' option (that I could find) if you misclick movement and it all feels a little too floaty at times. You are also forced to move the camera to reach certain squares because the standees cover where you are trying to click and all of that took a bit of time to get used to. I would like a more definitive feeling to the system, something more viscous with the ability to wind back actions that have not resulted in dealing damage. But it is an early access game, so we will have to see what happens in the future and these issues have never gotten in the way of my enjoyment of the combat mechanics.

Death in combat is quite an interesting situation also, most of the time a hero isn't automatically killed by losing all their health, typically they are offered a choice. They can retreat, leaving the fight and heading back to civilisation to get their maimed limb fixed up as best as can be (hook hand, peg leg? You can even gouge with the hook). Or they can choose to sacrifice themselves to deal massive damage to the monster that slew them. Or they can even sacrifice themselves to give everyone else armor. It's very much in the hands of the player and depends on what you want from the situation. You can let a hero die in an epic fashion, taking down the big bad of the story, or you can have a vital and important hero retreat, coming back later minus one limb. Or you can even red shirt some newbie to protect the other more valuable members (or sacrifice someone close to retirement). It's a nice mechanic - though I have had the occasional hero die outright, which was a shock when it happened.  Rest in Peace Kayn Amble, you were over 50% a tree, but you died saving your wife.

The Stories 

Written by a group of different writers, the story portions of the game provide the meat of the narrative, they are either directly linked to the progression of the main plot, or they are side adventures for specific heroes. They are written by some great writers and the dialog varies depending on the personality traits of the heroes involved in the story, a more serious hero will react differently to their friend developing a flaming arm than a goofy one.  

I am not sure exactly how many stories they have in the game during this Early Access period, I have encountered a few repeats during my playthroughs, but not an overwhelming amount and the variation in decisions, skills and plain old chance have kept the events feeling fresh even when they are encountered repeatedly. They're also fast, quick to click through if you are a rapid reader and the pictures of the characters in the story reflect all of the gear and changes they have been through. 

They're also well written and at times touching, with impact on your character's development and the end of the campaign. One hero encounters their estranged father, who they harbor resentment for, a friend tries to convince them to repair bridges, do they? Or a terrifying machine offers to give a replacement arm for someone who currently has a hook. Do they risk the price? It's fun to explore and experience these and they keep adding to them, enriching the experience.  Some stories are short, over in the moment, while others require multiple steps, finding a rare book and then over a decade later someone else deciphers its message while a third person actually goes to the place described in the book. 

There's a huge amount of emergent storytelling here in addition to the crafted options presented. If you are a roleplaying type (hello!) then you will find yourself making decisions based on the perceived personality of the hero, not just automatically 'the best option' - the game encourages and rewards this. You can always explore what might have happened next time.

Legacies

There is one more thing I'd like to write about before finishing, and that is the addition of the Legacy system. When a hero dies, or at the end of the campaign they may become a "Legacy" this means that they are added to that little pedestal I showed up near the top, and in later games they can be brought back for another story. It's a wonderful mechanic and makes things feel very special. It also takes the sting out of the death of a treasured hero, making the experience more bittersweet than unpleasant. 

Also, as time passes you can promote heroes in this legacy system, having them become stronger, I am new to this mechanic and still just exploring it.

Summary

For story orientated board gamers who enjoy campaign based games like Kingdom Death, Gloomhaven, 7th Continent or video gamers who enjoyed Darkest Dungeon, Divinity/Divinity II Wildermyth is an amazing deal. Its pick up, put down nature, adjustable difficulty (going from C.S Lewis -> JK Rowling -> GRR Martin -> HP Lovecraft), beautiful style, wonderful music (reminds me of Arcanum, anyone remember Arcanum? That was the soundtrack to our WFRP roleplaying for many months) and heart makes this game something really special.

It has exploration, romance, loss, cool gear, interesting foes, stunning music and visuals and the entire thing feels like playing a simple, classic roleplaying game. 10/10.

Check it out here on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/763890/Wildermyth/ 

Currently available for:   € 16,79 (I picked it up on sale at a 10% discount at the time of this post it has 20% off).