Game Announcement: Wacambria Island

Solo developer announces "explorer/achiever" title for Q2 '24.

December 6, 2023

7 Min Read

[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Game Developer and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource Games Press]

Moses Doyle :

Coeur d’Alene, ID – December 1, 2023

Wacambria Island announced by solo developer Moses Doyle. Wacambria Island will be an Action Adventure RPG available for the PC on Steam at launch. Featuring a main quest line, explorable island, numerous ruins, rewards and loot to ‘boot’, Wacambria Island is focusing on delivering a meaningful play experience to the explorer/achiever gamer. The anticipated release dates for Wacambria Island is Q1 to Q2 2024.

“Wacambria Island is nearing its final stages of content development. There will be a number of quality passes and revisions due to beta testing, but I believe Wacambria Island should be complete by or before June 2024. This includes all of the ‘cozy’ features also advertised such as buying homes and having pets etc.” – Moses Doyle

Details
Wacambria Island is an open-island, action RPG set on an island comprised of diverse biomes. Play as an adventurer whos’ search for treasure lands him in the middle of a drama between the local islanders and an invading army. With the island mostly captured by the invading army, you will need to work together with the locals to gain back territory. This journey will take you across numerous biomes, caves, ruins and towns while discovering the secrets of an ancient power and a legendary hero. With the odds stacked against the local people, you will be the deciding factor of freedom in Wacambria Island.

Visuals
Wacambria Island features a colorful retro 3D visual style. The characters are cute and have a semi-child like animations. Overall the environment is bright and cheerful and the creatures are charming as well.

Lore
Generations ago Wacambria Island was inhabited by two waring kingdoms Pedronia and Phaduck. Both kingdoms developed and harnessed a powerful energy flowing throughout the island. This energy allowed for technical advancements throughout both cultures. During the ongoing war a massive offensive was taken by the kingdom of Phaduck which had substantial impact on Pedronia. Desperate for options the king of Pedronia went into battle and clashed with the King of Phaduck. Both being enhanced with polarized powerful energy, their battle was intense and could be felt across the island. At its culmination, a large blast went off and completely enveloped the island. Afterward no one could be found and its lands were desolate and in ruins. As time passed new people found their way to the island and began inhabiting the islands ruins and rebuilding some of the structures. Some inhabitants have ancestors who had lived in the kingdoms that previously dwelt there and carry the story of its demise to the present.

Short Description
Explore Wacambria Island’s vast landscape as a treasure hunter, adventurer all while fighting valiantly for the freedom of the local islanders. Search various biomes, caves, ruins and towns while unlocking treasures and solving puzzles in your quest to liberate the island.

Features
Exciting Combat
Engage in satisfying combat as you free Wacambria Island. Your enemies will strafe, parry and work together to try and stop your valiant efforts. Utilize the variety of weapons and tactics to bring your foes to their knees.
Highlights:
– A variety of weapons to choose from
– Smart enemies evade, parry and dodge

Sneak or Attack
You can hack and smash your way through enemy strongholds or choose to sneak through them. Some situations will be harder than others and you will need to judge the best strategy for your play style.
Highlights:
– Hide behind cover with smart enemy view cones
– Sneak or charge the enemies depending on your play style

Explore Various Locations
Explore the many locations of Wacambria Island while finding treasures and freeing the people. With a rich history, Wacambria Island has many aged castles, caves and ruins packed with secrets, treasure and danger.
Highlights:
– Large open island to explore
– Unique biomes
– Castles, Caves and Ruins
– Purchase homes and decorate them

Full of Secrets
Search for “Secret Treasures” hidden within the game areas to unlock special tokens. These tokens can be spent on weapons, armor and other items.
– Treasure hidden all over the island
– Unlock tokens for finding “Secret Treasures”
– Use the treasure and tokens to purchase items

Engaging NPC’s
The people of Wacambria Island are a friendly bunch. As you adventure through the Island you have the opportunity to engage and help them help you. Your enemies will fight back with advanced tactics in an effort to thwart your valiant efforts.
– Unique NPC AI driven by needs like hunger and sleep.
– Enemy combat AI blocks, dodges and parries.

Purchase and decorate your homes
Use your treasures to purchase a home within the towns of Wacambria Island. Decorate your home with treasures you buy or find along your journey.
– Buy a home
– Easily decorate with a simplistic builder
– Purchase décor from the in game menu

About the Developer
Technical Background
Moses Doyle is a self taught programmer/developer from the United States. Growing up he was exposed to his first computer (Packard Bell desktop computer) at the age of 15 and began programming using a language known as QBasic. His curiosity with programming quickly turned into a passion and created his first game less than a year later using QBasic. Moses later moved to C++ for its Object Oriented Programming capabilities and overall robust language features. Moses took to learning software tools such as 3D Studio Max, Adobe Photoshop, Cakewalk and Audacity in order to develop his own game assets. Since that time Moses has developed multiple game engines for different genres and developed various software tools for businesses such as POS systems, networking tools and websites.

Moses’ message about Wacambria Island
“Wacambria Island is really my kind of game. I’ve always loved 3D Action RPGs like Zelda and The Elder Scrolls. To me the excitement of these games come in the form of exploration and adventure. I loved finding new places to explore and the secrets they may hold. I wanted to bring these elements into Wacambria Island and give the player places to see, explore and secrets to find. Of course as a solo developer I have to balance and prioritize what my own expectations when taking on a large game concept like an Action RPG. For me, Its easy to get excited about adding a new mechanic and feature to my game, but I have to think of the total time impact and weigh it against the possibility of entering endless development. As the aesthetic goes, I’m going for a retro 3D feel which has the benefit of being much easier to produce. Producing a single 3D asset can take quite a bit of time when your factoring in collision, bump map, LOD, shaders and the sort. That doesn’t even factor in the logic for it. So I keep it simple and make the best representation of the object I can within a reasonable amount time. To me Wacambria Island looks good given my time balance approach. Overall I think there is cohesion and it seems to really feel right with the gameplay mechanics. Its exciting to see Wacambria Island really taking shape and edge closer to being sent out into the world.”

Moses’ message to Players
“I’ve always had a passion to make games and I’m very excited for you to experience the adventurous world I’ve been creating! Wacambria Island is the first of many adventure games I plan to develop with my custom written Action RPG game engine. Wacambria Island will feature original 3D assets and artwork. I hope you will come along with me for the journey as I’ll be announcing updates until the release!”