Wayward Woods

A charming little game! Wind Current is my favorite spell. For those who might struggle to move, I suggest clicking the How to Play button on the main menu that is also present in each combat level!

This game was fun for what it presented. The magic system feels a little limiting at first but then as your are able to move more and grab more pips, along with using the lightning to interact with the water allowed for some nice strategies. A little limiting though as the gameplay is quite short and replayability isn't the best, but for what it is working with it plays decently overall. Also the sound design is awesome, especially considering the limitations they were working with. Hats off to them. The page flipping sound was top tier.

Stuff I like - I like the 2.5D art style. Really does give the feel of a pop up book - Music and Sfx felt right. It all felt like it belonged, nothing felt out of place, or was distracting. - The intro is very cute. - Control scheme felt fairly intuitive and natural. - Difficulty felt reasonable, but could've been slightly harder. - Had minimal bugs, and the small things I did encounter had only minor impacts. - Using the environment as a weapon was fun. Electrifying the water and then using a wind spell to knock an enemy into it is neat emergent gameplay. Wind current in particular is a really fun spell for this. - Having to move around to get spell pips back really forces a more active gameplay style. This is particularly important as two of the wind spells can be used very defensively, so making you stay on the move means you can't just sit in the corner. - Spell variety was nice and they synergized well with each other. - Gameplay reminds me of a slower paced version of Mega Man Battle Network. - I'd like more of what's already there. I put this in the stuff I like category, as that's a good sign, it means that the core of gameplay loop has potential for more spells, more enemi…

This game was a lovely little experience, very cool to see this level of quality in a Bradley capstone game. The core gameplay loop feels a little lacking with the very limited options presented, but literally everything else was top notch in my opinion. Great audio and music, quality voice acting, intuitive UI, and appealing art style. With more spell types and artifacts to choose from (perhaps unlocked by the player bit by bit over time?) this could be a 10/10 turn-based strategy game. It scratches the same itch as Into the Breach. Could use more content, but overall very well done!

good.