Wayfarers

A slow co-op RPG for everyone in Ambient, made to be played from a phone a minute at a time. You level on your own clock; the guild travels together. Each season the caravan crosses six regions of frontier, each held by a warlord, and founds a stronghold at the end of the road — and everything anyone does along the way, from one hunt to a five-person dungeon, pushes it further.

How it plays#

Drop in for a minute whenever you like. The Ready now strip under your sheet lists everything waiting on you, and a tap goes straight there. New players start with a few screens; the rest open up as they come to matter. Your pack, talents, wardrobe and collection are on your Character, a tap from your sheet; making things is under Town › Craft.

On your own#

• Hunting. Push your luck. Every beast is a gamble: bring it down and the next, richer one is in sight — press on, or head home with the haul. Deeper pays far more and is likelier to knock you out, which loses everything you are carrying. Your gear and your health set the odds, and nothing makes them certain. There is no drinking on the trail, so set out healthy. The den, five beasts in, holds a rough gem and maybe a relic, and a campfire after it where you can stash your haul — a knockout from there takes only half of what you stashed.
• Fishing. Pick a spot and a bait, strike when the float goes under, then keep the fish inside the bar until the meter fills. Every region has a rare fish of its own, there is a weekly derby for the heaviest, and Old Whiskers turns up in one spot for one hour a season.
• Cooking. A dish heals you and gives a bonus for an hour. A Wayfarer's Feast gives everyone in a dungeon or raid +8% attack and defence.
• Farming. Three plots to start, up to six as your Farming grows. Anyone can water or tend anyone's crops for a bigger harvest, and two different crops side by side can cross into a hybrid seed.
• Catching up. Time away banks rested XP, which doubles hunt and adventure XP until it is spent. If you are behind the guild's usual level, you earn up to double XP.
• Treasure trails. A clue scroll leads you through three steps to a casket. Some steps need a guildmate of another class, who gets paid for helping. If none comes — nobody answers within twelve hours, or none of that class has been about for three days — you can force the lock alone, at a cost in tools, with a chance it jams, for half the lock's worth in the casket.

With the guild#

• The trail. A new card every day — a storm, a merchant, a fork in the road. Everyone votes, and at midnight UTC the caravan does whatever won.
• Dungeons. Up to five of you, live in 25-second turns or async with eight hours a turn. Every foe shows its next move so the party can plan around it, some rooms need a particular class or trade, and every fifth floor is a boss whose defeat weakens the region's warlord. An async party doesn't wait forever: miss two turns running and it goes on without you, and once someone has kept everyone waiting two hours the rest can vote them home sooner. Either way they keep their share of what was banked.
• The war camp. On the Raid tab, eight works the guild builds and stocks between fights: a palisade, a ballista yard, a drill yard, a storehouse, a woodpile, a scouts' tent, an armoury and a trapper's lodge. Every fight draws on them, and the camp does its share whoever is there — a barrage and volleys, troops who ward beside you and fight on, tricks stripped, a beast snared — up to most of a fight, but never the last of it. What it holds back is yours to spend in the fight: fire the ballistae, order the line, spring a snare, hand out rations. Whoever readied it is paid when a fight ends.
• The raid. Every weekend, at the time most of the guild marked (or Sunday evening), against the region's warlord, sized to whoever comes. Time your strikes, brace against its telegraphed blows, and win to move the caravan on. It happens either way; enough of you ready at once starts it sooner. Each warlord has an oil, a ward, a draught and a dish made against it.
• The siege. Every Wednesday night a warband attacks the caravan. The camp keeps the barricade, the watchfire and the wounded going from its stores while they last; whoever comes does the rest and drives it off.
• World bosses and gathering events. A rare beast, a Fallen Star or the salmon run gives the whole guild fifteen minutes to work it down. A beast is met with whatever the camp has in store that moment. If fewer than three of you are on, it waits up to six hours for more.
• Bounties. Three guild goals every Monday, paid to everyone who helped.
• Minigames. The Trial of Roles, for two to four, where each role sees something the others cannot; and Banner War on weekends, Red against Blue, capture the flag.
• Feed and dares. Cheer what guildmates do, or dare one to out-fish or out-hunt you for gold — or to beat your score at a minigame, played against your run as a ghost, or to a game of knucklebones. Playing alongside someone five or more levels apart pays you both a quarter more XP.

Minigames#

Much of what you do can be played for a few seconds instead of rolled: four strikes at the anvil or a leatherworker's stitches along a hide, a strike a stone at the gem wheel, pans off the heat, reagents tapped back in order, a rune traced from memory to enchant, bracing for a beast on the trail when you choose to, a seam or a pelt that glints at work, a go at a gathering event, a trouble in a plot, channels turned to water one, a cast into the ripple, beams raised for a gift to the guild's buildings, the ballista aimed in a fight, the knack on each siege button, a dig and a rune lock on a treasure trail. Each one says what it is worth before you start. Skip any of them and the action pays exactly what it always did; play it and it can only do better — Exceptional and Masterwork gear, Flawless stones, Hearty dishes and extra ones, Potent raid preparations, Deep enchantments, steadier odds on the trail, lighter blows and richer kills, harder volleys, a second shift's haul from a glint, bigger harvests, gifts that go further, a quicker bite — and a game played well teaches your trade faster.

The Daily comes with a wagon to pack, the same load for the whole guild that day; a full one pays the Daily half again. On a day whose card has a rough way, anyone can run the pass ahead of the caravan, and the runs ease whatever rough way the vote takes. The travelling trader can be haggled, and the Barracks has a weekly drill with a board. Past level 50 there is the Climb, a week's route up the face above the summit, for a board and nothing else. Every day there is the day's cipher on the Trail tab — four runes the whole guild tries to break in six guesses — and now and then a floor below ground is a sealed door of runes the party works together. Turn any game off on the Guild tab, under Minigames.

Classes and talents#

Every region fears one class, whose blows land half again as hard there, so the class the guild needs most changes along the road. From level 3, every third level brings a talent point for a tree with Wilds, Dungeon and Raid branches. You cannot fill the whole tree, so choose; a reset costs gold.

Trades and gear#

• Professions. One gathering trade (mining, skinning, herbalism or logging) and one crafting trade (blacksmithing, leatherworking or alchemy). Fishing, cooking and farming are everyone's. Skills run from 1 to 150 and carry over between seasons, and switching trades keeps the old one's skill for if you come back.
• Past 100. Everything there was is open by 100. Past it a point comes slower, and every ten points bring something new: gatherers' finds come in twice over and turn up Starmetal; crafters and cooks get new recipes (the Starforged goods, the Grand Feast) and second makings; anglers get two fish on the line and rarer bites; farmers get more plots, faster crops and bumper harvests. 150 in any of them is a Grandmaster's title.
• Gear. Make weapons and armour at the forge. The best pieces come only from a skilled Blacksmith or Leatherworker, so you order them through a commission. Cut gems go in sockets, and Alchemists add enchantments.
• Raid preparations and heirlooms. Each region's reagent becomes an oil, a ward or a draught against its warlord. Warlords drop parts that a crafter finishes into a permanent heirloom with a special move.
• The town. Post commissions, sell on the market, buy from the travelling trader (it stocks what nobody in the guild can make yet), or hand anything to a guildmate.
• Building. Gold and materials build caravan upgrades that last the season and guild hall rooms that stay for good.

Past level 24#

Levels never stop, and neither does the gear: the forge's ladder goes on to level 50, a new weapon and a new piece of armour every four or five levels, and new beasts take over the trail.

• Veteran ranks. Every level from 25 on brings a Veteran's cache to open: Starmetal, gems, a relic, potions and gold. Every fifth is a grand one, with a Warlord Trophy.
• Starmetal. The veterans' gear is forged from it. It comes from the caches, a veteran's den beast on a hunt, world bosses, and anything Heroic.
• Heroic dungeons. The region's dungeon for a party of level 24 and up: tougher foes, half again the loot, Starmetal on the way down, and twice the chance of the warlord's part.
• Heroic warlords. A veteran can call back any warlord the caravan has beaten this season, at full strength — every trick it has, none stripped by intel. Two minutes to gather, ten to win. A win pays Starmetal, a Warlord Trophy and a relic, more for the top three. The guild can call one every six hours.
• The summit. Past level 50 the forge has nothing new, so your level becomes a high score: the Summit board keeps the season's highest, everyone's best in any season and the guild's record. It is worth nothing in a fight — the season's leader is its Summiteer, and the Summit frames come at levels 60, 75 and 100.

Seasons#

A season is six regions. The caravan reaches the next one only when the guild beats that region's warlord in the weekend raid, so it is six raid wins to the stronghold. The season ends when the stronghold is founded, or after ten weeks. At the fourth region the guild votes on one of three routes, and every season rolls two twists that change the rules.

Then everyone starts again at level 1, and levels turn into renown — one for every five — a lasting bonus to XP and gold: 2% a point for the first fifteen, 1% a point after that, up to 60%. You keep your class, titles, profession skills, heirlooms, outfits, pets, collection log and wardrobe, and the guild keeps its hall.

Notifications and sound#

Turn on phone notifications on the Guild tab — raids, sieges, sightings, thirsty plots and more, with party calls on a separate switch. On an iPhone, add the page to your Home Screen first (Share → Add to Home Screen) and open it from there. The speaker on your sheet mutes sound and vibration. Every change to the game is on the Guild tab's What's new page.