Hi, and thanks for coming to check out Wayward Strand at the Steam Summer Festival!
Wayward Strand is our experimental and heartfelt story game, in which you play as Casey, a teenager who explores an airborne hospital and gets to know the patients and staff inside. Our latest demo is available to try, we'd love you to check it out, and then let us know what you think of it - you can do this on our Discord or our Twitter. You can also connect with us during the livestreams we're doing throughout the festival!
As you play the demo, you'll notice an interesting mechanic - all the characters aboard the ship have their own stories, and they each live out their day, independent of what you (as Casey) are doing. You can choose to follow a particular character to see what goes on with them, to spend time with them and chat, or just to wander around to see what you happen upon at a particular time in a particular place.
Our demo is of the beginning section of the game, and doesn't take too long to play - about 15 minutes - but you can play it multiple times if you'd like, to see all the different things that are going on during the first morning on the ship.
About Us
Our team is based in Melbourne, Australia, and we've been working on Wayward Strand for a few years now. We all came together around this unique idea, having been inspired by interactive theatre like Sleep No More, and during development we've been figuring out our development processes as we make the game.
We work in a pretty unique way for an indie team - for instance, Wayward Strand is set on the coast in Victoria, on Bunurong land, and we have done several fun research trips there, spending time in the area as a team, wandering around and discussing the experience, the history and the characters.
We also do a lot of consultation, because while the airship and the characters are fictional, it's set in a historical context (1978 Australia), and we want to draw as much as we can from the real history of the time, as well as including stories informed by our discussions with members of the Bunurong community, who are the Indigenous people of the land where Wayward Strand is set.
That's (some of) the team up there! From left to right, it's Russell (programming), Maize (sound & music), Jason (production, writing, & programming), Kalonica (art & animation), Goldie (art direction) - and Aspen (tech art) on the far right has been lovingly photoshopped in by Goldie.
Here we are on one of our research trips, when we went down to Inverloch for a few days to explore, capture audio, and discuss the history of the area with the local historical society:
There are a bunch more wonderful team members, collaborators and consultants that have contributed to Wayward Strand over the course of development as well - we're really a little community of our own now.
That’s all for the moment - thanks for stopping by! We really hope you enjoy the demo, and if you do, please add us to your Wishlist - that way you can be notified when the game is released and you can play it in full.
Lots of love,
The Wayward Strand team