Castles on wheels (and legs) built for destruction - Wanderburg is explosive fun

Wanderburg released into Early Access today and it's one I think you're going to love - with castles on wheels, legs and all sorts. Disclosure: a key was provided to GamingOnLinux.

It's a mixture of gameplay elements found in the likes of recent bullet heaven survivor-likes, with a good mixture of roguelite progression and some bullet hell once it really gets going. My first thought originally when seeing it and trying the demo was basically a mixture of Mortal Engines and Howl's Moving Castle but an explosive indie game. I still think that's a good description of it.

Testing on the SteamOS Steam Machine with Proton 11, it has been a fantastic time. It looks great and performs well in the sections I've managed to actually unlock of it so far. I rarely see it go under 100 FPS at 2560x1440 so I'm really happy with the performance overall.

There are times when you see a game, boot it up and instantly think - “this is the good shit“, this is one of those times.

You don't start off with much choice and have to play a fair amount of it to begin unlocking more, but eventually when starting a run you get to pick between all sorts of modules. As you go through a run you collect coins to level up, then pick a new upgrade to expand your castle of doom and keep going until you beat all the bosses in each region to then unlock more regions to fight through.

While it's quite minimalist in some ways, the overall design of it is still quite spectacular. From the silly little soldiers you suck up to the massive rolling fortresses of descruction you have to take down - there's never a dull moment. Especially so when you face the various bosses, all with their own unique design and unique attack patterns. There's a huge amount of variety across the different lands you unlock and visit.

One point that really made me laugh - I saw something that looked really odd coming my way, then when it went side on I saw it properly - a wooden horse! Then it suddenly hit me, a Trojan horse! And phew - that was close, quite a big explosion from taking it down.

Even though I'm not going to score it since it's not finished and in Early Access, I'm still going to give it an informal full recommendation just because of how fun it already is. Magnificent combat. Absolutely some of the most fun I've had recently when trying out a newer game, indie developers just keep on surprising with what they can do.

See the official trailer below:

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