A small game, made by a 2 man team, Wanderlust describes itself as “an online, fantasy, 4 player party-based arcade-action RPG game made with Game Maker.” Whew, what a mouthful, though it wasn’t until I actually ran the game for the first time did I realise it was made with Game Maker. Oh man, with my past experience with Game Maker, simply knowing this game is made in it, would unpretentiously lower my expectations of said product. Fortunately, any preconceptions I may have had, are in this instance unjustified. This game is quite neatly put together, if a bit unusual in its controls.
One of the first things I noticed, beyond the slight tediousness of the tutorial (it’s a tutorial, stopping tutorials from being tedious is essentially an art form), was that I felt quite encouraged by the game to jump in the deep end and dive straight into some multiplayer action, something I don’t feel particularly comfortable doing until I’ve gotten used to the game. I don’t exactly want other players to see how much I suck at something after all. The next thing I noticed, was that the controls felt a bit sluggish. Oh well, it’s Game Maker; ignore it Kriss.
I seem to be seeing a lot of 2D, classic-looking, tile-based games being released lately, and there seems to be a prominent lack of uniqueness to many of said games. Fortunately the multiplayer in Wanderlust reminds me a lot of Magicka: It’s designed to be played with friends, and while the content isn’t always immersive, it has the potential to be massive amounts of fun as a social game. My only quarrel with this game in particular though, is the amount of animations that appear on the screen during combat. I repeatedly found myself scanning the screen frantically trying to find where my character was; leaving me to feel a bit useless as other players picked up the slack.
The beginning of the story is a titbit questionable. First of all, how did that old guy fit a whole arena in a tent that small? Later making me question, once I had moved on to the first chapter, why am I here, and how does this character know me? Why am I here? Why did I just fight in a tournament? As always though, answers are given with time; that or you make assumptions based on presented information.
Generally speaking, Wanderlust is a fun little social game. A fun little game to play with friends over Skype or Teamspeak, and I’m quite surprised that at the time of writing, there are actually less than 700 people who have purchased this game. The game costs a fickle $10 (which translates to about £6.50), with a couple more dollars knocked off for each extra copy you buy at the same time, and judging by the fact that the game is currently on version 2.51, it appears the developers have been adding content and making tweaks on an ongoing basis. What more could you ask from a small development?
