Truth be told, I’m still not sold on “bullet heaven” as a genre. Name notwithstanding, the genre is certainly here to stay, and there always seems to be funny new takes on it despite the fact that Vampire Survivors did kind of start it off without much room for improvement. While I’m not sure if Wanderburg is an improvement (I haven’t played it yet), I do conceptually like its approach being to hand you a modular medieval castle tank that can suck up sheep and blast cannon fire at your enemies. And it’s out today in early access!
Wanderburg, like its predecessors, is a roguelike, though as I write this I now wonder if that’s a given in the genre, which feels slightly frustrating seeing as neither genre name is particularly prescriptive. You start off with a castle that is also a tank, armed only with a single starting weapon, like a cannon, to defend yourself with. The whole idea is that as you level up, you expand your castle, growing it in size and strength as you do so.
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Growth is dependent on a few things. For reasons unbeknownst to me, hoovering up cattle and flocks of sheep can help you do so, but villages fleeing in terror and taking down rival fortresses can do so too. As you level up, you can choose new modules to attach to your mobile castle. That might be new building parts like a barracks that can spawn troops to fight for you, or weaponry like a giant hammer to smash enemies to one side of you. It also looks like you can change up your wheels, with the option of even switching to legs. The movement looks bouncy almost, and I’m fond of the way everything looks like it’s about to topple over at any moment.
As mentioned, Wanderburg is releasing into early access today, so don’t expect a completely finished game. As it stands the core loop is in there, but there are plans to add in more stuff to do and mess around with, as well as make tweaks based on community feedback over the next six to 12 months. If any of what developer Randwerk are putting down takes your fancy, then you pick it up on Steam right now.