VAGRANTSONG

Skip to the spooky side of the tracks with Wyrd Games’ boss battler, Vagarantsong

Words by Christopher John Eggett

"We call it rubber hose,” says Kyle Rowan, describing the art style of their new boss battler, Vagarantsong. Rowan is the design lead at Wyrd Games, a company best known for its card driven skirmish game Malifaux, now in its third edition. Wyrd started out in the industry as a miniatures company, so this more recent interest in board games shows a bold and interesting direction for the company. While Rowan is the design lead on all the games at the studio, Vagrantsong is his baby.

“It’s loosely 1920s,” continues Rowan, “we don’t actually say outright, as we like to have fun with time in the game. We’ve looped in certain reference that might not be accurate to the 1920s – but for the most part you’ll get that sort of ‘American Dustbowl’ vibe from the game.”

The setting drives all the flavour of the game. Players will be taking the role of vagrants in the game, the classic ‘hobo’ of the period. They’ll be attempting to beat, or ‘solve’ each of the bosses of this game across over 20 scenarios using what they have to hand – all inside a train carriage they wish they’d not hopped on.

Now, the ghost train they’ve trapped themselves on is hurtling down the tracks, and there’s something spooky going on.

HAINT THAT THE TRUTH

That spooky thing is the Haints you’ll be fighting or fixing in each scenario.

“Haint is just a Southern terms for ghosts,” says Rowan, “it’s looped into a lot of folklore. There’s even a colour called ‘haint blue’ that has significance in the game, but also in superstition in the South. Some people paint their balconies haint blue to ward off ghosts from entering their homes.”

“We wanted to create as many strange reference as possible. You’ll also see there’s a lot of hobo terminology in the game, for example when you die in the game, you don’t remove your character, you flip your character card over to the westbound side. Which is what hobos would say about their friends who would pass – ‘they’re travelling westbound’,” continues Rowan, a reference to the fact that much of the vagrant travel of the time would be west to east.

The haints themselves are the stars of the show, each one is a boss representing a traveller who has lost their humanity. Because the game is a little bit of a boss rush game, we obviously begin to invoke Dark Souls – but only if you preferred to play with friends.