THEM AKING O F. . .
WILDERMYTH
How three family members and nine years of work led to a new benchmark for adaptive stor ytelling
By Lewis Gordon
Format PC Developer/publisher Worldwalker Games Origin US Release 2021
Plenty can happen over the course of a lifetime. Take, for instance, the experiences of Aforn and Inneste, two battle-hardened adventurers well into their 70s who enjoyed nothing more than gabbing away to each other as they went about the important business of saving the realm. They found love with one another late in life, the culmination of a protracted Ross-and-Rachel will-they-won’t-they courtship. But having finally tied the knot, tragedy befell the pair. At a crucial moment in a battle against the shadowy force known as the Deepists, Aforn offered himself as a sacrifice before a grief-stricken Inneste threw herself into combat so recklessly that she fell, too. At least we can say they had a good run.
The brilliance of Wildermyth is that this story is unique to our playthrough. Another player may well experience similar events but not in precisely the same way. It’s as close as any videogame has yet come to a truly adaptive narrative, its procedural plot points playing out with wit and verve. And it’s all the more impressive when you consider that its development was driven by a team of just three developers – all of them members of the same extended family.
Worldwalker Games was founded by husband-and-wife duo Nate and Annie Austin, respectively lead programmer and lead artist on Wildermyth. Lead writer Douglas Austin is Nate’s youngest brother. It’s unsurprising, then, to learn the game has its origins in a family event: a Thanksgiving dinner in 2012. At that time, Nate was working at Riot, Annie at GameSalad, and Douglas had recently graduated from the University Of California with a degree in literature. When the trio came together at Nate and Douglas’ parent’s house in Newbury Park, a small town in California, and discussed what kind of game they’d like to make, the answer was “fantasy XCOM”, Douglas recalls. “We really love tactics, and the stories of the soldiers that emerge. We thought: ‘Wouldn’t this be cool in a fantasy context, and is there such a game that scratches that itch?’ We felt like that was a game we could make.” Nate and Annie had also been playing Descent: Journeys In The Dark, a tactical combat boardgame. “We’d be planning out turns and stories would emerge from the heroes who were maybe jealous of one another or who redeemed themselves after terrible failures,” Annie explains. “The story ended up being the most fun part.”