Earlier this year, we met with Daedelic Entertainment to preview some of their upcoming games set to release in 2023. During that meeting, we previewed Reveil, Rough Justice: 84, and the now-infamous The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. Since then, Daedalic Entertainment has announced that moving forward they’d be focusing more on publishing games rather than developing them. With that in mind, Daedalic Entertainment showcased ten promising games: Capes, Edge of Sanity, Fling to the Finish, Hidden Deep, Magin: The Rat Project Stories, New Cycle, Reveil, Wanderful, Wild Woods, and Woodo. Due to a tight schedule at PAX West 2023, we decided to check out only Capes, Fling to the Finish, Reveil, and Wild Woods. Below are our impressions of Wild Woods & Fling to the Finish.
Wild Woods
After a semi-lengthy Capes demo, we moved over to Octofox Games Wild Woods. Wild Woods is a couch coop game that has players working together to gather resources for their caravan, protect it, and fight off hoards in order to survive. As the caravan moves throughout the level, players will need to strategies on what path to take in order to gather additional resources, avoid powerful monsters, upgrade the cart, and avoid death.
For our hands-on playthrough of the demo, our group was surprisingly coordinated; we were able to divide tasks and even take down the boss within each path. In the boss fight, only one player died however, we were able to quickly revive them. Enemy attacks are choreographed with a hitbox which allows players to avoid them if they are paying attention. Wild Woods can be a fun time if you have a group of coordinated players. Thankfully, each member of our group was able to decide on a task to work on in order to benefit the caravan.
Wild Woods requires a good bit of cooperation in order to survive. Talking with your partners is the key to success. Early on, we accidentally over-fueled the flames in the cart and ran out of wood to have a fire guiding our path. With cooperation as a key part of each team’s success, managing resources and discussing tasks will determine whether the cart survives or not.
Fling to the Finish
Finally, after a fun and successful Wild Woods demo, we moved over to Fling to the Finish. Fling to the Finish is a competitive cooperative game. Players are divided into two teams and must race against one another in an obstacle course. Like a 3 legged race, you are reliant on your partner. Attached together by a string you both will roll to try and get to the finish. In order to get to the Finish line, players must time their jumps with their partner. If an obstacle is too tall or has no direct path. You can grab onto a flat surface and Fling your partner; they can then latch on to another surface and fling you to the top or an opportune area.
Before going into the demo, the idea of another cooperative racer seemed kind of comical, however, after playing through the demo, the concept Is a lot more enjoyable than previously expected. Having variety within their levels makes it so that no course gets stale. Each level has different power-ups that can help teams make it through the course; those power-ups could be comedic even if they don’t fit the level design. Our two favorite power-ups were the Witches’ Broom and UFO.
Overall, Daedalic Entertainment had a great assortment of games for PAX West attendees to try out. Based on what we got to preview, it looks like they have done a great job selecting titles to publish. Hopefully, they will stick to publishing titles vs. developing their own titles for the time being. Do any of the games sound interesting to you? Which game looks the most appealing to you?
