a warm, heartfelt game that I'm so glad exists. I have a handful of notes on the mechanics side, primarily that a midday save would be welcome.
next round, gonna have to read some guides to get some of the fuller stories
next round, gonna have to read some guides to get some of the fuller stories
A wonderful game with a unique mood, but also some strange design decisions. The ambiance is superb, the voice actors are splendid and the idea of just wandering around a little floating hospice is really nice, with some clever dialog and pace. The music help set up the mood and also characterize the game and each character. The story also change and evolves as much as needed to let you feel to have an influence while not being the almighty most important character : you're just an observer, a bystander. The idea of eardropping on other conversation just by passing by also feel very good !
The biggest flaw is the save system : it only save the game inbetween day of the game. The game is 3 day long. The days are in "real time" so they take like 1h30 to pass. So, it's mean if you launch the game, you have to play for at least 1h30. And if you want to play the second day, you HAVE to play for ~3h. No inbetween. It's really frustrating.
But in general, the game style touch me and charmed me. So, I still recommand it.
The biggest flaw is the save system : it only save the game inbetween day of the game. The game is 3 day long. The days are in "real time" so they take like 1h30 to pass. So, it's mean if you launch the game, you have to play for at least 1h30. And if you want to play the second day, you HAVE to play for ~3h. No inbetween. It's really frustrating.
But in general, the game style touch me and charmed me. So, I still recommand it.
Have you ever been walking through a street and caught a fragment of some stranger's conversations? A sentence or two, or maybe something more substantial if they are being particularly loud. You ever wonder how, others who live rich lives as complex as yours will only intersect with yours at such brief moments? One day I wish to make a game based on that concept but until then I have Wayward Strand.
One particular narrative pit that games fall into sometimes is making the characters feel like mere simulation, an NPC
who will sit still dispensing quests and exposition at your convenience with seemingly little goals beyond that. Of course this is mostly just due to scope and cost, having NPCs "lead lives" can get you an Oblivion style situation where they almost behave like humans but not quite. I think this is the main reason for the popularity of timeloop games, you can add to the illusion of characters existing beyond being useful to players whilst also being able to limit their freedom and activities to a single day/week/whatever.
Wayward Strand is on a really slow boil, theres no great mystery and is honestly really mundane, but its greatest asset is what it DOESNT show you. Whilst having little in the way of mechanics its as interactive as games get, the wheel of time keeps moving and you cant be everywhere at once.
Eavesdrop on a conversation about who stole Mrs Fitzimmons' cookies and miss the chance to see Mr Finch try to flirt with the Nurse. These characters start to grow on you as you get to know them and even just the act of letting time pass as you sit with one of them is a choice, leading to missed events but also to the character saying something that cannot be asked by you, sometimes helpful, sometimes not so much.
I realize I may come across as a bit of a hypocrite here, because earlier this month I reviewed Outer Wilds and was slightly dismayed at just how prevalent the theme of death and mortality seemingly is in Games, especially those praised for being "arty" or "elevating" the medium. Thats not to say I inherently just hate the theme, its more it becomes tiresome to see the same sorts of themes and narrative threads being gone over so many times, even if executed differently. I've got To The Moon and Rakuen in my backlog as well and I'm dreading getting to those anytime soon.
Wayward Strand does deal in death a bit, these are all Elderly Patients at a hospital after all. There is a sobering but refreshing sense of grounding to it all. A character passes away before you arrive on the first day but he just sort of died of natural causes. Life goes on and those around him try to varying degrees to keep his memory alive.
Some characters are prickly, cantankerous, others a bit sad. Some cannot speak and many cannot walk. Its quite the vehicle for empathy as you get to know these characters and you see these abrasive character traits for what they are. Of course the old cancer patient who seemingly struggles to stay upright doesnt want to talk to you much, she's being kept at the hospital even though she really just wants to go home and spend her final days there. Another is a bit standoffish but seems in immense pain, which has its own narrative payoff at the end.
I enjoy this much more because whilst these characters all live knowing the reaper isnt too far away, they all live their lives how they want to, the theme isnt the same hackneyed memento mori bullshit as always (though there is some of that, and the perpetually ticking clock mechanic does slightly point to it thematically) but much broader about compassion and understanding. Even the asshole nurse Joe becomes more sympathetic when you learn about his relationship to a nurse who quit a few weeks ago.
A ship full of flawed and sympathetic souls to spend your time with, catching glimpses of their lives and yes, eavesdropping on their conversations at times (though even they are not above this sort of behaviour at times). You never get the complete picture of them, much like you don't in real life (and certainly not over the span of 3 days) but it works wonderfully. Their voices and character designs are very well done and expressive, in particular I liked Mr Pruess, Mr Avery and Mrs Fitzgerald's performances. There are some minor visual bugs and stutters at times, but its all more than worth it. And whilst it did wrap up okay in the end, I must say I wasnt the biggest fan of the overarching story arc between you and your mum, the Head Nurse. Could have been executed better, I think.
Overall though I quite recommend Wayward Strand, it is a very talky adventure game with little in the way of puzzles, but its interactivity is hard to deny in a game where jsut choosing to walk into a room or not can make all the difference in the information the Main Character will learn and take with her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lePaEZCFAWU
One particular narrative pit that games fall into sometimes is making the characters feel like mere simulation, an NPC
who will sit still dispensing quests and exposition at your convenience with seemingly little goals beyond that. Of course this is mostly just due to scope and cost, having NPCs "lead lives" can get you an Oblivion style situation where they almost behave like humans but not quite. I think this is the main reason for the popularity of timeloop games, you can add to the illusion of characters existing beyond being useful to players whilst also being able to limit their freedom and activities to a single day/week/whatever.
Wayward Strand is on a really slow boil, theres no great mystery and is honestly really mundane, but its greatest asset is what it DOESNT show you. Whilst having little in the way of mechanics its as interactive as games get, the wheel of time keeps moving and you cant be everywhere at once.
Eavesdrop on a conversation about who stole Mrs Fitzimmons' cookies and miss the chance to see Mr Finch try to flirt with the Nurse. These characters start to grow on you as you get to know them and even just the act of letting time pass as you sit with one of them is a choice, leading to missed events but also to the character saying something that cannot be asked by you, sometimes helpful, sometimes not so much.
I realize I may come across as a bit of a hypocrite here, because earlier this month I reviewed Outer Wilds and was slightly dismayed at just how prevalent the theme of death and mortality seemingly is in Games, especially those praised for being "arty" or "elevating" the medium. Thats not to say I inherently just hate the theme, its more it becomes tiresome to see the same sorts of themes and narrative threads being gone over so many times, even if executed differently. I've got To The Moon and Rakuen in my backlog as well and I'm dreading getting to those anytime soon.
Wayward Strand does deal in death a bit, these are all Elderly Patients at a hospital after all. There is a sobering but refreshing sense of grounding to it all. A character passes away before you arrive on the first day but he just sort of died of natural causes. Life goes on and those around him try to varying degrees to keep his memory alive.
Some characters are prickly, cantankerous, others a bit sad. Some cannot speak and many cannot walk. Its quite the vehicle for empathy as you get to know these characters and you see these abrasive character traits for what they are. Of course the old cancer patient who seemingly struggles to stay upright doesnt want to talk to you much, she's being kept at the hospital even though she really just wants to go home and spend her final days there. Another is a bit standoffish but seems in immense pain, which has its own narrative payoff at the end.
I enjoy this much more because whilst these characters all live knowing the reaper isnt too far away, they all live their lives how they want to, the theme isnt the same hackneyed memento mori bullshit as always (though there is some of that, and the perpetually ticking clock mechanic does slightly point to it thematically) but much broader about compassion and understanding. Even the asshole nurse Joe becomes more sympathetic when you learn about his relationship to a nurse who quit a few weeks ago.
A ship full of flawed and sympathetic souls to spend your time with, catching glimpses of their lives and yes, eavesdropping on their conversations at times (though even they are not above this sort of behaviour at times). You never get the complete picture of them, much like you don't in real life (and certainly not over the span of 3 days) but it works wonderfully. Their voices and character designs are very well done and expressive, in particular I liked Mr Pruess, Mr Avery and Mrs Fitzgerald's performances. There are some minor visual bugs and stutters at times, but its all more than worth it. And whilst it did wrap up okay in the end, I must say I wasnt the biggest fan of the overarching story arc between you and your mum, the Head Nurse. Could have been executed better, I think.
Overall though I quite recommend Wayward Strand, it is a very talky adventure game with little in the way of puzzles, but its interactivity is hard to deny in a game where jsut choosing to walk into a room or not can make all the difference in the information the Main Character will learn and take with her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lePaEZCFAWU
I played the demo for Wayward Strand a few years ago during LudaNarraCon and I had kept my on eye on it since. Now that it’s finally been released and I’ve played through it I can definitely say it’s a great game. Wayward Strand feels a bit like the 90’s Jordan Mechner directed adventure game, The Last Express, in that it’s a historical fiction adventure game set in a singular location where people are doing their own thing around you as the in-game clock ticks on whether your there to see it or not. Unlike Last Express though, Wayward Strand is much more low-key and mundane, there are no grand mysteries to uncover or daring adventure to swashbuckle your way into, you’re just a young Australian girl, Casey, tasked to accompany your head nurse mother to the airship hospital she works on to help her keep the patients company for the three day weekend. That’s pretty much the gameplay, exploring the airship hospital and getting to learn about it and the characters you interact with over the course of three in-game days.
The mundanity of the game is one of its greatest strengths as there are very few games I can think of, even ones more grounded in our reality, that just lack any kind of peril. Even games such as Gone Home and Firewatch which are entirely grounded, still dance around with player expectations that there may be more sinister things at work, and that still sort of applied to Firewatch. Wayward Strand focuses on how the everyday going-ons with the hospital and how the patients deal with their lives in their twilight years, knowing that the reaper will be visiting them sooner rather than later. An example of this is that one of the patients passed away early in the morning of the day that Casey first arrives so she never gets to meet him, but you can have her question the patients and staff about him and they’ll regale you their memories of him. I’ll just tell you straight up there’s no underlying twist to his death, he was just old and he passed away in his sleep and that just exemplifies my point, this isn’t some standard high concept game narrative where there’s got to be something deeper going on, it’s just life and life doesn’t tend to give one satisfying narrative climaxes. But that’s not to say it’s boring at all, the characters are fleshed out and interesting and they’re brought to life with quality voice-acting and charming art and its real engaging interacting with them. That’s another face of the game too, it’s a positive and human game as the relationships of the patients and staff keep them going, but avoids being twee or cloying. It’s a game that is appropriate for kids but has some real maturity to it.
As I stated before the characters do things on their own and have their own schedules so there is definitely stuff you’re going to miss on a first play through. For example I only managed to get a scant few of the game’s achievements in my playthrough so there definitely is more for me to uncover. I plan on revisiting the game again sometime after I’ve chipped away through some of my backlog. One of the few negatives I feel the game has it you have to play each day in one go, the game doesn’t have any middays saves. The devs have already said they are working on this and they’ve already patched a day select so this problem will be mostly likely fixed. There’s also some janky graphical stuff like characters clipping through each other when they walk through doorways, but that’s just such a minor quibble, especially because this is an indie game, and everything else about it is great.
Wayward Strand is just a charming and maturely written game that you don’t see a lot of this in medium and I heartily recommend if you’re down with exploring an airship hospital and its cast of characters.
The mundanity of the game is one of its greatest strengths as there are very few games I can think of, even ones more grounded in our reality, that just lack any kind of peril. Even games such as Gone Home and Firewatch which are entirely grounded, still dance around with player expectations that there may be more sinister things at work, and that still sort of applied to Firewatch. Wayward Strand focuses on how the everyday going-ons with the hospital and how the patients deal with their lives in their twilight years, knowing that the reaper will be visiting them sooner rather than later. An example of this is that one of the patients passed away early in the morning of the day that Casey first arrives so she never gets to meet him, but you can have her question the patients and staff about him and they’ll regale you their memories of him. I’ll just tell you straight up there’s no underlying twist to his death, he was just old and he passed away in his sleep and that just exemplifies my point, this isn’t some standard high concept game narrative where there’s got to be something deeper going on, it’s just life and life doesn’t tend to give one satisfying narrative climaxes. But that’s not to say it’s boring at all, the characters are fleshed out and interesting and they’re brought to life with quality voice-acting and charming art and its real engaging interacting with them. That’s another face of the game too, it’s a positive and human game as the relationships of the patients and staff keep them going, but avoids being twee or cloying. It’s a game that is appropriate for kids but has some real maturity to it.
As I stated before the characters do things on their own and have their own schedules so there is definitely stuff you’re going to miss on a first play through. For example I only managed to get a scant few of the game’s achievements in my playthrough so there definitely is more for me to uncover. I plan on revisiting the game again sometime after I’ve chipped away through some of my backlog. One of the few negatives I feel the game has it you have to play each day in one go, the game doesn’t have any middays saves. The devs have already said they are working on this and they’ve already patched a day select so this problem will be mostly likely fixed. There’s also some janky graphical stuff like characters clipping through each other when they walk through doorways, but that’s just such a minor quibble, especially because this is an indie game, and everything else about it is great.
Wayward Strand is just a charming and maturely written game that you don’t see a lot of this in medium and I heartily recommend if you’re down with exploring an airship hospital and its cast of characters.
It's a sweet, low-paced, reflexive, and significantly subversive game based on a child spending three days in a hospital to help her mother (a nurse). Basically you just wander around, speak with patients, take notes on your journal. Time marches on, three days are quite short, and people mind their own business (meaning that they have their own schedules, dialogues, actions, and experiences even if you're not there - as in Deadly Premonition, but way more impactful). You follow them, spy them, speak with them as a bored child would do. You dream about becoming a journalist and solving some mysteries within the hospital, and there's a mysterious VIP who's supposed to visit someone soon. Eventually, it turns out there's nothing to solve, no VIP visiting, anything at all. The game subverts many gaming clichés and logics at the same time: from the concept of progression to empowerment, from tasks to exploration, from the relationships with npcs to dialogue-based storytelling. It works by subtraction, especially towards the ending - where you're entirely free to draw your own conclusions.
I never felt the weight of my decisions more than in this little game about a busy hospital airship. There's a lot to see and do but there are only so many hours in the day, you know? I'll never be sure if I spent my time as wisely as I could have.
I caught so many snippets of other people's conversations while engaged in one of my own. There was offscreen drama happening while I was busy spending time with someone else! I stumbled into special moments I would never have experienced if I hadn't been in the right place at the right time.
The story is joyful, sad, mundane, exciting, funny and sobering all at once. It offers very little in terms of closure but is stronger for it. That's just the way life goes! There is so much beauty to be found in the mundane and this game is a wonderful celebration of that.
I caught so many snippets of other people's conversations while engaged in one of my own. There was offscreen drama happening while I was busy spending time with someone else! I stumbled into special moments I would never have experienced if I hadn't been in the right place at the right time.
The story is joyful, sad, mundane, exciting, funny and sobering all at once. It offers very little in terms of closure but is stronger for it. That's just the way life goes! There is so much beauty to be found in the mundane and this game is a wonderful celebration of that.