Wastenauts: A Co-op RPG Card Game - Now on Kickstarter

Wastenauts: A post-apocalyptic co-op RPG card game

In Wastenauts, four characters with unique abilities set out towards Beam City. Throughout the story, their challenge is to defeat bots, scavenge their scraps to craft gear, and overcoming mighty Bosses that stand in their way. As they progress, the characters level up, allowing them to improve their loadout with more ability and glory cards, as well as augments that buff their stats. In this post I will explain some of the game basics, which I also go through during my Adventure Mode playthrough below:

Story and Adventure Game Modes

There are two main modes: Story and Adventure. Both modes are playable between 1-4 players. The first time you access a new area, such as The Dunes, your only option is to play the Story Mode. The story follows the main characters in a post-apocalyptic setting. Each personality shines through in their diversity, making a collective badass group to scavenge the place and work together in a team. My favourite one of all is Lena, who uses her melodic voice to buff allies, stun and damage enemies.

Lena's voice attack animation

Once you defeat the boss in the story mode, you can play that level in Adventure Mode to earn more experience, coins and cards - some of which can only be obtained through such reward pool. In Adventure Mode, you choose the monsters you will face; the harder the monsters, the better the reward. You can only choose monsters you have cards of, so do not shy away from purchasing a tough monster to increase the challenge!

Camping, Exploring and Combating

Camping at Night

Each time you play a mode, you have a number of days and nights before you reach the boss (e.g. in the Dunes, you have 7 nights). Depends on how you play, you might not even draw half of the available deck by that time.

You start out at the camp, where characters can use Camping abilities, such as Andrea's Scout Ahead, which allows you to see the next three cards in the deck and reorder them. While at camp, you can also trade cards or gears between characters. If your Lena has a Grenade Launcher, you may decide to switch it onto Buster. Once you use the Camp cards, you plan to send out your characters into 1-4 parties. Sending each member on their own can help you draw more cards, but be careful of danger! A single character may find it difficult to battle higher-levelled opponents, so plan ahead to avoid getting your characters knocked out.

Exploring the Area

When you set out your characters to explore, the first party's turn starts. Each character has two values: Attack and Speed. Speed determines the number of cards a character can draw. If a party has more than one member, the lowest speed within the party determines how many cards can be drawn (e.g. If Andrea has 4 speed and is partied with Lena who has 2 speed, then the party can only draw 2 cards that turn.)

Preparing Parties Overnight; Andrea alone with 4 draws,
Lena, Jack and Buster grouped with 2 draws

Cards that are drawn may either be Gear or Resource cards (e.g. gain Scrap or Component), events, or Monster cards. For the resources or gears, you simply get these into your characters' hands. Events will activate some dialogue that is relevant to the story or another even that may require a choice from your end. Lastly, if you encounter monsters, you will head into combat. Do note that the order of the deck is not preset; like other crawler games, replaying the same level means the game will play out differently each time.

Combat

Attacking Enemies

Once you encounter a monster card, your party goes into battle. The turn order is decided by the characters' speed. You may use any combat cards your characters may have at this time. Then, you can drag your Attack card onto the enemy - this is where the Attack stat comes in. For every attack stat you have, you will roll a 3-sided die (0, 1 or 2) which will determine how much damage you do. Your Attack card is able to be modded by other cards in the camp to increase the attack stat or your base damage. When you destroy bots, the character takes that bot card into their hand, taking it with them to the camp.

Party vs the Shrapnel Whirlwind (The Dunes' Boss)

Injury and Penalisation

When the enemy attacks, it will give one (or all) of your characters 1 injury. Upon the first injury, the characters' speed is lowered, making you go slower and draw less cards. The reduces speed can sometimes mean the opponent is faster you in the second turn, so be aware of this penalisation before you get hit twice in a row!

Upon the second injury, the character's attack is reduced. This is crucial as your damage output will be reduced significantly, meaning you might be unable to defeat the monster facing you. Once your character receives a third injury, they are knocked out. This ends their turns and forces them to rest during next camp, without being able to use any Camp abilities. If the character is knocked out just before a Boss fight, that character will remain knocked out and will not assist you in that Boss battle.

Crafting Gears from Scraps

Once you head back into the camp at night, you can open the Gear menu to recycle any bot cards you hold. These may give gears, cards that boost your attacks or more resources. Some monster cards have a Carry effect that is active as long as it remains in a characters' hands - so do not recycle this unless it is more beneficial to do so.

With the scraps and components discovered during card draws or recycling, you can craft equipment for your characters. Crafted equipment give you a significant boost against tough monsters, and at times feel necessary to beat certain bosses. One of my favourite equipments is Buster's Chameleon Suit, giving him +2 attack in exchange for -1 defence while equipped.

Levelling Characters and Choosing Loadout

After each run, you earn an XP amount which you can split between your four characters. The characters require a certain amount of XP as well as tasks to be completed. For example, the first four characters require 100XP and to have Killed a Behemoth (boss) to achieve level 2. With new levels, characters unlock further slots for abilities, augments and glory cards.

Once you head back from your run, you can go to the Store (Scrap 'N Go)
to purchase cards with your hard earned coins. You may buy ability cards, equipment cards, as well as monster cards for Adventure Mode. The store building can be upgraded in the Construction building by using resources collected in Adventure Mode. Each upgrade of Scrap 'N Go unlocks more cards available for purchase.

On the loadout screen, you can equip abilities, augments and glories, depending on available slots according to the level. Ability and Glory cards can be used during Camping, Exploration or Combat. The only difference between the two is that Glory cards can only be used once per run; if you use a Glory card Day 1, you will not be able to use it again in any other day. Augments, on the other hand, are buffs to the characters' attack or speed stats. This makes levelling extremely useful, so you might want to grind some experience in Adventure Mode before heading into the next Story Mode.

Fun and Unique Gameplay

I have played the pre-Kickstarter Alpha for about 5 to 6 hours and am definitely far from discovering all that the game has to offer. My time flew by quite fast, an indication that the game delivers a fun experience unparalleled by any other game. The possibility for co-op gameplay adds an additional layer of fun and depth that most card games are unable to provide

If you are interested in the game (and you should be if you read so far), follow their Kickstarter to get notified when it goes live on 23rd March 2021. Kickstarter campaigns often offer exclusives (such as the Wastenauts' tote bag) as well as a limited early-bird pledge, so getting notified is your best way to grab an early-bird pledge while they are available.

Wastenauts' Tote Bag, as shared on Discord

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Game and Social Links

• Official Wastenauts Site
• Wastenauts on Kickstarter
• Wishlist on Steam
• Follow Wastenaut and Razbury Games on Twitter
• Follow me, PinkGeeRough, on Twitch, Youtube and Twitter