Wayward is a roguelike survival game by Unlok. The game has an outdated version that can be played in the browser for free here
, and a paid version on Steam.
The game is played from a top-down perspective, and is turn-based (so time only passes when you do something), although there is an option for real-time gameplay. The goal is to simply gather resources to avoid dying of starvation or dehydration, and to fight off wild beasts that are trying to kill you. You can craft items to make these tasks easier. And what are those horrifying sounds you sometimes hear from underground? And you have a vague memory about a treasure...
Tropes found in Wayward
- Breakable Weapons: Every item has a durability meter that goes down when you use it, including your weapons and armor. You can repair most items with a hammer, but the maximum durability lowers each time you do this. You can use various types of glue to restore the maximum durability of items.
- Gaia's Vengeance: The island doesn't like you taking its resources, and will try harder to kill you if you cut down too many trees, dig through too many rocks, or killing too many non-hostile creatures.
- Gardening-Variety Weapon: Tools such as hoes, pickaxes, and shovels can be used as weapons if you have nothing else. They'll do against most surface monsters, but aren't strong enough for stronger cave-dwelling monsters.
- Giant Spider: A common enemy. Their attacks can afflict you with poison, making them dangerous if you don't get access to medicinal plants.
- Harping on About Harpies: Harpies are a type of enemy in this game. Unusually, they are mostly found in caves. Killing one rewards you with chicken meat and lots of feathers.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Eating food gives you a few points of life back, although it's usually not enough to save your life in a fight.
- Karma Meter: Called "Reputation". Killing non-hostile creatures, harvesting non-fruit/seed resources, creating uncontained fire, or using skills deemed destructive causes it to drop, while using non-destructive skills like gardening, taming, cooking and killing hostile creaturesnote causes it to rise. Negative reputation makes the wildlife more hostile to you.
- Rodents of Unusual Size: Giant rats are a common enemy. Their description almost name-drops the trope word-for-word.
- Songs in the Key of Panic: The background music becomes faster and higher-pitched when you are nearly dead.
- Treasure Map: Tattered Maps provide a very grainy image of some place in the game world. If you keep trying to read it, your cartography skill will increase and you'll get more hints such as the map image being larger and less covered up, the general direction of the treasure, and the approximate distance. If you manage to find and dig at the precise right space, you'll find a treasure chest with random items that may or may not be worth the trouble. And a number of powerful enemies might suddenly spawn.
- Wizard Needs Food Badly: You have separate hunger and thirst meters that need to be kept full.
