Wild Woods Preview

During this year's Steam Next Fest, our lovely Gorz and I took it upon ourselves to try out some interesting co-op demos on stream, trying to pick out some perspective diamonds and seeing how many shenanigans we could manage! One of the first titles we tried was the co-op adventure, Wild Woods!

In this colourful isometric adventure, you play as up to four cats protecting a cart from bandits, explosive plants, and other dangers. Armed with swords, you can do an attack combo or perform a flying special attack for added damage, in addition to dodging out of harm's way and picking up items from around the map to throw. As you start the game and at certain points, your cart will stop, allowing you to either pick a route to continue on (with associated risks) or take a rest at safe zones. Your cart-pulling beast of burden is stubborn though, so once they start a-pulling, they will not stop until they are either at a stopping point or are bonked on the head, so you will have to keep up with your rolling home.

During each leg of the trip, you will be met with resources, such as herbs and wood, to gather into the cart and enemies to fight, which may drop money to collect. Each resource is important, as the wood helps you keep a fire going in the dark of night — warding away the chill and monsters both, and herbs can be used to heal when it seems one of your nine lives is coming close to its end. Money is useful, though it's mostly used for upgrades at rest stops.

Wild Woods was much more fun than I assumed at first! While the gameplay loop in itself is simple, the constant movement of the card and the surprisingly satisfying combat kept us invested. We did seem to be running into the same kinds of encounters a lot, but I’ll chalk that up to it being a demo. If you’re looking for a great couch co-op adventure to play with your buds, this is definitely one to keep an eye out for.