The kind of game that knows what you want before you do, and gives you what you never knew you needed besides

Sit down, wherever you are. Find a spot beside a campfire, around a space heater or on the 15-year old futon in your friend’s dad’s basement, and get comfortable. It’s time for a story.

Worldwalker Games’ debut bears few of the hallmarks of an overnight success: no jaw-slackening visuals, no Twitch-friendly multiplayer mode, no attractive protagonists. The elevator pitch is fine, if hardly likely to set hearts aflame: a story-led tactical RPG based on Dungeons & Dragons. OK, so what else? Well, plenty, as it turns out. Wildermyth is remarkable: it’s the product of a thousand smart decisions, the kind of game that knows what you want before you do, and gives you what you never knew you needed besides. And it is unapologetically earnest, from the tip of its +1 magic staff to the toes of its leather boots of swiftness.

Adventures here are divided into serialised campaigns (think of them as short stories) with a randomised cast of beady eyed and bushy tailed heroes. Worldwalker Games has no interest in recreating the tedious sixblock Good/Neutral/Evil grid from the D&D campaigns of old. Instead we have a selection of basic traits: Hothead, Goofball, Coward, Romantic. Everybody gets two each, along with a class of warrior, hunter or mystic.