For more information on the GWJ CRPG Club, go here.
Wildermyth is the GWJ cRPG Club's 23rd winner, eventually running out comfortably ahead of Dragon's Dogma: Dark arisen in the final few ranked choice voting rounds. Although Dragon's Dogma was a popular first choice amongst the initial votes, it was very much a case of it either being voted for 1st or not at all. Despite this initial popularity it did not get a majority and Wildermyth came through in the end.
Wildermyth is a tactical role-playing game. At the beginning of the game, the player will choose from several randomized characters. Gradually, these character will grow into battle-hardened heroes and acquire new traits, which will lead to both additional narrative and gameplay opportunities. These characters will also form both friendship or rival relationship with each other, and will age as time progresses. While the main campaign still follows the major story beats, character development is based on a procedural generation system, meaning that each playthrough will be different from one another. Turn-based combat is similar to the XCOM series of games which utilizes a grid-based system. Outside of combat, the player also needs to make choices in the campaign map. For instance, players can choose to rebuild a village, but this decision may mean that the player has less time to prepare for another invasion event.
Released into Early Access on Steam in 2019, the game reached full release in June 2021. The game was developed by Worldwalker Games, an independent video game development studio based in Austin, Texas. The studio only had six full-time employees. According to Nate Austin, the designer of the game, Wildermyth "[alternates] layers of handcrafted and procedural content". The game features a central narrative that has a defined beginning, middle and end, but it also incorporates procedural events arisen through combat and the personality of each player character. Story is mainly told through comic strips known as "Library of Plays".
We will be playing this game until 31st Decemeber 2023, by which time we'll have completely forgotten all about it due to a combination of Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield, Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader and half a dozen other games I've completely forgot are coming out.
This thread is for friendly discussion as we play through the game. Share your reflections, successes, defeats, tactics, wishes, impressions, and whatever here! The more conversation the better, so post away.
For BIG spoilers, please use the spoiler tag. (No! I am your father!) Tactics, strategies, general story progression likely won't need them.
Anyone and everyone is welcome to participate, and can start at any time, so join the fun! One quick favour: If you decide to play, make a post here along the lines of "I'm in!" to let us know. If you start and finish the game before the end, you'll level up your GWJ CRPG Membership.
Links to the Game
Steam - £14.61 / $18.74
GoG - £14.69 / $18.74
Epic Game Store - £19.99 / $24.99
GameBillet - £14.62 / $14.49 (? - sorry I can't confirm the dollar from the link Stele used)
Fanatical - £11.69 / $14.99
CDKeys - £8.09 / $10.39 (steam key)
Please note that the game is currently PC only, although there is apparently a Nintendo Switch version in development.
Metacritic
Wildermyth Wiki
HowLongtoBeat ~ 34.5 Hours (88.5 Hours Completionist)
For this game I am going to suggest the following as "complete":
1. New Players - finish the Tutorial Campaign (Age of Ulstryx) and one other full campaign. Age of Ulstryx can be completed in a couple of hours, it doesn't take very long.
2. Returning Players - Finish two full campaigns, preferable ones you haven't played before if possible. You'll need to be your own adjudicator on that though.
Members Complete
Sorbicol
Stele
ubrakto
Legion
Sundown
Gewy
Members Playing
Farscry
LastSurprise
JDZappa
billt721
Shadout
LeapingGnome
Tasty Pudding
I'm in, and I've installed it on Steam.
I'm proud of all you Wildermyth voters. Bought the game and the DLC. I'm in!
I've had this on my list to return to, and with Cosmic Star Heroine over in the JRPG club being such a short title, I should be able to jump back into Wildermyth once I wrap that one up. 
I'm in, hopefully! Though I'll probably start this one after I make progress in a few other games.
Wildermyth is the GWJ cRPG Club's 23rd winner, eventually running out comfortably ahead of Dragon's Dogma: Dark arisen in the final few ranked choice voting rounds. Although Dragon's Dogma was a popular first choice amongst the initial votes, it was very much a case of it either being voted for 1st or not at all. Despite this initial popularity it did not get a majority and Wildermyth came through in the end.
Hey, that's very similar to what happened in the JRPG Club!
I’m in - especially since the “win” conditions are entirely reasonable. Now I just need to decide if I play fresh or pick up where I left off.
Alright, this one has been on my list forever. I'll pick it up in the sale and play along.
I'm in, hopefully! Though I'll probably start this one after I make progress in a few other games.
Sorbicol wrote:Wildermyth is the GWJ cRPG Club's 23rd winner, eventually running out comfortably ahead of Dragon's Dogma: Dark arisen in the final few ranked choice voting rounds. Although Dragon's Dogma was a popular first choice amongst the initial votes, it was very much a case of it either being voted for 1st or not at all. Despite this initial popularity it did not get a majority and Wildermyth came through in the end.
Hey, that's very similar to what happened in the JRPG Club!
I'll be completely honest, and possibly slightly controversial, but I think re-reading the clubs rules I should have ruled out Dragon's Dogma as illegible. It's probably jRPG enough not to have been included.
I would recommend anyone wanting to play it does so in the jRPG club. I'm not sure I'd allow it again.
Don't forget, if you are going to play Wildermyth please register your interest in that game thread, not here. Otherwise I get confused. I'm not young any more!
EDIT: You can see how confused I am posting this in the game thread and not the main thread like I thought I was. God Damn it.
EDIT: You can see how confused I am posting this in the game thread and not the main thread like I thought I was. God Damn it.
Same... I'll just make some quick edits. Nothing to see here...
So, uh. I'm in. About to buy it. Need to finish off my current game first before I start though.
I'm still plodding away at Kenshi as well, but no rush with it, in part because I don't really know how you "finish" that one.
I'll be completely honest, and possibly slightly controversial, but I think re-reading the clubs rules I should have ruled out Dragon's Dogma
*cancels plans to overthrow Sorbs and seize control of the club in a bloody coup*
Sorbicol wrote:I'll be completely honest, and possibly slightly controversial, but I think re-reading the clubs rules I should have ruled out Dragon's Dogma
*cancels plans to overthrow Sorbs and seize control of the club in a bloody coup*
Oh it’s entirely possible I’ve also thought that maybe Kenshi wasn’t story driven enough to be an RPG, and it’s actually a survival simulator.
*Legion* wrote:Sorbicol wrote:I'll be completely honest, and possibly slightly controversial, but I think re-reading the clubs rules I should have ruled out Dragon's Dogma
*cancels plans to overthrow Sorbs and seize control of the club in a bloody coup*
Oh it’s entirely possible I’ve also thought that maybe Kenshi wasn’t story driven enough to be an RPG, and it’s actually a survival simulator.
*... slowly picks the walkie-talkie back up*
So I clicked on Steam Workshop, and the very first thing I saw was a mod called Lewd Events.
What kind of game did we just pick?
2. Returning Players - Finish two full campaigns, preferable ones you haven't played before if possible. You'll need to be your own adjudicator on that though.
Haha. I've already done them all once, Ulstryx and Eluna twice. 177 hours according to Steam. But I'll figure something out.
Maybe hunt more achievements. I believe I'm at 929 kills with my best dagger hunter. So I need to get her to 1000 for that one.
Here's the catch all. It's only 4 pages but some are worth reading. Some strategy talk between me and ccoates the first 2 pages if you can wade through walls of battle reports. 
Also there is co-op. I've never done it but I heard it was fun from others. Maybe we could get that going weekly on some Fri or Sat nights in discord? Could be fun.
So I clicked on Steam Workshop,
I just posted a screenshot yesterday of all my mods. Traveling this weekend and wanted to make sure I had them all on my laptop but it looks like it synced. But I left it up for friends in case anyone was curious. Most of them are cosmetic, hair and faces. You will get tired of seeing the same looking people after 2-3 campaigns but installing those helps a ton.
But I did use the Free Ability Reroll mod. I know that one makes the difficulty a bit easier. But I had some ugly luck early on, like when I got my 2nd made i was offered powers my first mage already had. Then rerolled costing LP and was offered the other power my mage had or something like that. It just annoyed me and I had a lot more fun with free rerolls.
It's not like the game still wasn't challenging. I had characters die and others permanently wounded at various times.
The other one I will highly recommend is Unique Augments Over Legacy. You will run into some really cool sh*t in this game. Like one of your heroes
falling in love with a river spirit
for instance. And that event will give you a cloak item as a memory. And then at the end of your campaign you can promote your character to legacy and keep things from that campaign. But without this mod that cool item from that cool story moment will disappear forever. It's really lame by default.
Plus there are other events, like transformations, that turn your characters into other things, limb by limb. You can choose to allow or deny parts of these. And if you save a legacy from those, the transformed limbs will carry over forever. So I don't see why one cool event gets to be permanent and another doesn't. So, great mod.
The other one I liked but had to tweak was Healthy Humans.. You can see my comment and instructions in the discussion thread. Basically I really like the part of mod that changes skill deterioration to the next tier, so your hero doesn't start going downhill at 30. But the +30 retirement age is too much for me. So I modified the mod and only kept the part I liked.
Also there is co-op. I've never done it but I heard it was fun from others. Maybe we could get that going weekly on some Fri or Sat nights in discord? Could be fun.
Coop is fantastic. Turns during combat are simultaneous which is absolutely brilliant. No sitting around waiting for your turn, each turn is an interesting discussion of who wants to do what and when. You can see the spaces others are highlighting and the paths they are proposing to take, etc. It's a fantastic implementation and a great way to make a multiplayer turn based strategy RPG work.
It also supports drop in drop out. You can assign players to characters on the fly, so if someone needs to hop on late or leave early you can support that. A character can either be assigned to a single player or you can mark a character as being controllable by anyone which works out perfectly with odd numbers of characters/players.
Turns out I played the game right after the last campaign was added. Thought I had a new one to play.
Might dabble in it anyway, they have added a ton of new skills etc. since it seems.
But I did use the Free Ability Reroll mod. I know that one makes the difficulty a bit easier. But I had some ugly luck early on, like when I got my 2nd made i was offered powers my first mage already had. Then rerolled costing LP and was offered the other power my mage had or something like that. It just annoyed me and I had a lot more fun with free rerolls.
An angry D4 mob might hunt me down if they see this, but yeah, also liked the reroll mod for this game.
What kind of game did we just pick?
Doesn't really matter which game we picked. It has modding. That is the inevitable result.
*Legion* wrote:What kind of game did we just pick?
Doesn't really matter which game we picked. It has modding. That is the inevitable result.
Yeah. So I guess you didn’t see the Shek nude mods for Kenshi?
Looks like I left off last time with three campaigns complete, so on to the fourth: Luna and the Moth. This one lets you bring in two legacy characters (from previous campaigns) and starts you out with two new characters, siblings who are both mystics. Our adventure has begun with Thrixl causing much mischief and a mysterious Mothman lurking about.
With a year since my last campaign, it's easy to forget how much I adore its style—endless charm.
*Legion* wrote:What kind of game did we just pick?
Doesn't really matter which game we picked. It has modding. That is the inevitable result.
True, but it was the just so prominent as the first image in the Workshop.
Yeah. So I guess you didn’t see the Shek nude mods for Kenshi?
This has been on my wishlist for a while, this thread plus the Steam sale pushed me over the top and I'm in!
Looks like I left off last time with three campaigns complete, so on to the fourth: Luna and the Moth. This one lets you bring in two legacy characters (from previous campaigns) and starts you out with two new characters, siblings who are both mystics. Our adventure has begun with Thrixl causing much mischief and a mysterious Mothman lurking about.
With a year since my last campaign, it's easy to forget how much I adore its style—endless charm.
I’ve played the tutorial (at least twice) and the first campaign and that’s apparently it. Could have sworn I’d done more than that. No matter, as soon as I’m done with Miasma Chronicles, I’m in before BG3 starts.
Room for one more? I've never joined a CRPG Club game before, but Wildermyth has been on the wishlist forever, and this was the impetus I needed to pull the trigger.
Room for one more? I've never joined a CRPG Club game before, but Wildermyth has been on the wishlist forever, and this was the impetus I needed to pull the trigger. :)
Welcome aboard!
So I'm an hour in, and the tone of this game is, uh, very different from the last game we played. 
This is like video game twee indie folk pop, like someone made an RPG out of a Belle & Sebastian album. Even when the storyboards are portraying something "dark", it still feels like procedural storyteller is off to the side crocheting something.
They spin a good yarn, indeed.
I've cleared the Prologue / Tutorial section and now am in Chapter 1 of that first campaign! Had to reroll my characters a couple of times because I was dealing with multiple poet / poetical characters, and wanted some variety. I tweaked the names a little. My warrior and hunter are a budding couple; my hunter and mystic are rivals.
Question for those of you who have played before: I have a mission in Bonecedar to recruit a new character. Does that expire at all? My story destination is in the top left of the map, so I thought of scouting up and to the right, then doubling back to get the new character. But, maybe it would be better to get them right away.
The option to recruit remains open iirc.
Pros and cons. XP is split so takes longer to level up but having an extra fighter is more actions on your turn. Max squad size is 5.
Except for invasion missions. You can dump more than 5 on a zone and defend.
In the 5 chapter campaigns I usually end up splitting party eventually by ch 4 or 5 and going 4-4 and then taking my best 5 from that into final battles.
What Sorb and Stele said. In that campaign, I believe the only time-sensitive items are the hordes growing in strength (extra cards) and their incursions. I don't think anything is otherwise time-gated in the early campaigns, so it's worth it to scout and secure where you can before going to the goal areas. Every place you secure (not build fortifications, which is a different thing) produces resources you can use to upgrade gear in between chapters.
I did come across a time-gated goal in chapter 2 of Luna and the Moth, but I think that's the first time I've seen that. I'm into the start of chapter 4 now, and woof, was chapter 3 a rough slog (in a good way). I spent so much time exploring and securing, the hordes got pretty powerful/numerous, and I ended up sweating my way through most of the encounters toward the end (shamefully save scumming the final battle a couple of times).
Despite how much is randomly generated, it really does get you to care about the characters in your campaigns, as the little pop-up adventures combined with their starting traits create these awesome little emergent experiences.
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