We Are The Caretakers Reviews

An interesting take on TBS combat and a game that has some heart...literally as 10% of the games earnings go toward real life animal conservation. It is however on its own an entertaining game of strategy and afro-futurist lore that is intriguing. I hope to see it improve more and more during the early access phase.

I'm a fan of the mechanics and class styles. Love the Raun as well. The complicated politics are well represented, I'm interested to see how choices in the early game affect gameplay later. I especially like that rather than indicating the gender or characteristics of the avatars, there is simply a visual representation. Still some bugs to work out, but I enjoy playing and appreciate the intention and ambition.

As stated, it is an early access game, there are some UI issues that detract from the experience. * You can't press escape to close the current window consistently. * You can't highlight each unit to see what class they are as visually I can't see the difference. * You cannot name the unit or give it a leader. * The classes seem interesting but they're quite limited at this stage. * The detain function seems cool but, I don't get why some of the options are both negative, ie Give Bribe and Give Bribe being the two only options sometimes. * It is pretty easy to get full reputation in the story mode at this time, however money is very scarce and I seem to have run out in the 2nd Era after fielding too many units. If anyone had gotten this far, I do recommend the game at this price and I see it has some potential. This does somewhat fill the Ogre Battle/Last Remnant combat itch but needs a bit more refinement and depth. Looking forward to seeing what the developers can do moving forward.

This game is a great concept, and the Afro-futurist aesthetic adds a layer of depth I did not expect. Yes, it is early access/beta, so there's bugs, but the dev team is available nearly 24/7 to discuss problems and hear feedback. This is indie game development done right, and what is already a good game will be an outstanding final product as a result. Think of the early access purchase as a long term investment that is going to pay off soon! tldr: buy this. support indie games, and immerse yourself in Afro-futurist sci-fi! 9/10 (will give it a 10 once it's finished)

The depth so far is great, I keep pealing back new layers of coolness. I love the setting and overall theme as well. Looking forward to how this game continues to shape up during EA.

One of my friends said this game is sci-fi super soldier park rangers and that is spot-on.  The combat is a blast. The game is still buggy in early access but that doesn't block it from being a beautiful and fun experience. Also - that music, man. So. Good.  [i]Check it out if you like:[/i] Final Fantasy-esque combat and graphics and music, Divinity Original Sim's combat, rhinos, park rangers [i]Main word that comes to mind when I play this game:[/i] protector

I've been following WATC for a while. The studio is passionate about what they've made and that shows in the story and mechanics. There's really no game like WATC, I recommend you check it out and expose yourself to something unique and special.

An interesting blend of mechanics! The best I can describe it is an XCOM style geoscape layer complete with recruitable characters with class trees as well as a tech tree. Under that is an map layer where you move your squad(s) around on a board, interacting with hostile and friendly units and gather resources. And below that is a turn-based combat layer similar to JRPGs. I did not expect the twist at the end of the first chapter and am excited for more! At the time of this writing the game is still in alpha so there are rough edges in terms of UI, but I like what I see overall

An hour in, and I like it so far. Here's what to expect from what I've seen: - Map movement is like the Ogre Battle strategic map; realtime + pause. Within a mission, you send your squads around a regional map to complete objectives, capture towns, and engage enemy squads. - Combat is standard issue RPG, there's no tactical map: squads are face-to-face, it goes through the initiative order picking an action and doing it to someone, then new round. - It's got physical/social combat you might recognize from REIS - beat someone up or sap their morale - with an interesting mechanic: if you raise the "threat level" by going aggro too hard, the bad guys can run. Maybe you want that, maybe you don't. - Whack someone's stamina or will down to 0, and they don't go down or even stop issuing commands - they have to receive a finisher, first. Which is nice! Healing powers are weak, but you can keep shoving someone back above 0 to keep them safe. Also, your finishers can be things like "capture for interrogation", "recruit", or even "break their freaking arm to raise threat and scare off their buddies". Yes you can sap someone's will with your diplomats and then finish them by doing whatever it is that "wound" does to "remove them from the game". - Doesn't look like it's going deep on character building. You can promote people to different classes, and they have kinda variable stats, but it's not super deep. - Yes, you are beating up or arresting poachers instead of killing aliens. It's not all grimdark or anything if that's your thing, but the tone is not hugs-and-flowers. Eco-conscious games tend to get a certain rep, but maybe don't put your kids in front of a game where the poachers flay an animal and carve a message into its flesh with its own horn. Yeah. You want to get back at these guys.

Really loved the idea of this, so pre-ordered it ages ago and just given it a try now it's out of Early Access. Unfortunately, it feels more like a student project - lots of interesting ideas, poorly executed. Combat's an example of this. Instead of shooting foes to death, you wear down their stamina or their will to fight, until you can take them out - do you arrest them, knowing they might not face justice? Injure them so they don't come back, at the cost of your reputation? Aggressive actions also increase a persistent 'threat' meter, increasing the risk for both sides. If your rangers are aggressive, combats are more dangerous and escalate faster. Do you go for slow de-escalation, at the risk of attrition? The actual implementation is a JRPG line-up where you fire red or blue orbs at whichever of your opponent's health bars is lowest. It's made less impactful by the way most of the art and UI feels like a Programmer Art placeholder. The afrofuturist designs are neat, but every character is a lithe person in a bodysuit with a geometric hat who fires the same low-detail orbs, with no clear way to convey their class or abilities. It all feels vague and soupy. The same carries over to pretty much every layer and feature. There's interesting ideas there, but how they work isn't communicated very well and everything feels a bit incomplete and poorly thought through. You can do the missions in each chapter's story out of chronological order, but can't replay them if you miss objectives, even if that means you don't have the money to deploy your party in the next mission. You're incentivised to drag out missions because of daily rewards from towns you capture, but there's strict time limits on each... that are not well-conveyed. It's not really clear what is a design choice (did they decide to take the narrative's interesting "throw you into an unexplained world" angle for the mechanics too even though narrative and mechanics are very different?), what is an oversight, and what is a bug. I'm not sure whether this is accurate, but the general bugginess and quality problems remind me of all the other Early Access games I've backed where over-ambitious devs decided to write too much of the engine from scratch instead of using resources, and ended up not having the time to actually finish the game. I wish this lot luck because it was a great premise with some really novel ideas, it's just a shame it didn't take shape.