The Wagadu Chronicles
The Wagadu Chronicles is a sandbox MMORPG focused on gathering, crafting and building villages with friends. Customize your skill-based character and join parties to defeat Spirits through unique PVE multiplayer turn-based tactical combat. Compete to claim Wagadu’s open world islands with your guild.
freely customize Your Skills and Looks for Role Play
In Wagadu you can freely customize your character by focusing on whichever mix of skills works best for you. From a farmer-warrior to a fisher-musician, you decide which skills to develop.
You can deeply tailor your looks based on the many people and traditions of Wagadu’s vast lore and role play them with other characters.
Gather & Craft in the Player Driven Economy
Everything in Wagadu is made by players. Join the local markets and sell your wares – nothing goes to waste in this world: from village buildings to weapons and tools, everything needs harvesting, crafting and maintenance.
Compete for Villages and Upgrade them with Friends
In the open world of Wagadu you can form a Society guild and claim islands by nurturing their guardian Waka Spirits.
You can upgrade your village’s buildings and claim more Spirits’ territory, further extending your reach: be careful, if another Village desires the same land, you’ll both have to compete for the Guardian’s favor with gifts!
Engage in Multiplayer Tactical Turn-Based Combat
Wagadu’s PVE combat is a unique turn-based tactical combat that allows you to engage in strategic fights with friends.
Combat is divided in two phases: movement and action phase. Every player selects their movement and spends their action points, then all results trigger: team coordination is key!
Game Discussion
Steam User 48
tl;dr : You can feel this game in early access. While it's rough around the edges, the game is definitely fun, and the current issues can be flattened out.
It feels different from other cookie-cutter MMOs designed to squeeze every last cent out of you. The focus is on expressing yourself and building a community.
There is room for improvement regarding readability and polish. Still, seeing the developers engaging with the community and trying to address the issues ASAP, I am hopeful for the game and the growing community.
Give it a shot if you are into roleplaying games or want to experience something new!
Steam User 10
This is as of early December 2023 a mixed bag but so far I give it a thumbs up for early access.
The good: It is really authentic I think with lots of plants, tools, building styles etc I had never heard about and seen and like very much. The mobs are strange looking or outright surreal (what are those little running mushroom thingies even called?). The mini "dance for the fish spirit" game is nice and fresh. Personally I like that all the avatars are rather androgynous, most African people have no facial beards and thus the body shape and bust size gives some indication about gender or it just blurs. You won't see people with ... prepubescent names or such as you can only mix and match names from 1st and last ones and these names are not from the Western hemisphere, have translations to them but no gender indication either.
I like the graphic style overall.
The "meh or odd": It is quite grindy and you need to put points into things like "gather bark faster" to not watch progress bars of your character slowly moving.
The bad: The game is buggy. And I mean especially quest bugs, logical bugs in quests where a spirit won't accept something because another spirit with a quest at that one has somehow priority, spirits at different islands with same names confusing people etc. The color scheme is quite red and green and I think that is a problem for people who are red green blind. I'm not but I can't see paths really where I can move between levels on mountains for example, it is all the same redish hue. I actually spent over two hours in the first section of the tutorial (dream) island and got really frustrated why it won't progress until I opened the main map (why would you have to? Immersion and all?) and saw the moving dots of other people and on that map you can see different colors for paths...
I'm using now the main map a lot and it is breaking immersion and makes the impression of how much you have to run back and forth and grind just worse.
What my main problem is and I hope very much that is an early game issue and not a general design flaw: I don't yet understand what the point is moving from island to island. They might have a bit more resources or different ones and more dangerous spirits. But overall ... Why?
Usually I love survival sandbox games but here I'm not really sure what I actually can do FUN wise. I have a lot of possible grind tasks (gathering, leveling up stations of a waka, the pre-set villages). But why would someone want to, nothing is yours, you just fill bars, there is no creativity or freedom or such, I don't want to just fill check marks of someone else because they are there. So far visiting the islands seems more of a rinse and repeat than actual exploration with stories found or new things to do. And ALL OF IT seems indeed aimed to just have more bars to fill. For example if I play ARK Survival or any of those then I decide where to build a base, I have to fortify and creativity and how I design this, make it optimal. Getting out is quite dangerous but very much worth it to collect blueprints, sights, story, new tame-ables and such abilities. Yes, I have to figure out supply chains and gather a lot, but it is a means to an end for improving my base as I see fit. Not the actual content. Here so far it seems just to repeat the same thing with a different name for a different tier on a different island maybe.
Steam User 18
This game just released in early access and is of course still rough around the edges. But you can already feel the passion in the work of the people who are behind it. The worldly setting is cozy, and the African flair is evident in the gorgeous soundtrack.
There are craft trees, quest series, combat, and skill systems in place. I'm looking forward to seeing how the society and trading system evolve and how the team can implement their vision of the game in the future.
Steam User 20
Loving the crafting and questing on this, plus gorgeous art. Just from the character selection I can see I'm going to enjoy getting into the deep lore. All that and it looks, sounds (magical music) and plays well on my Steam Deck. Looking forward to seeing how this develops.
Steam User 10
It is nice to adventure into a world that we do not see often. I love that every one can be unique, especially the names. I like seeing other people and inquire about what their names mean and what their lineages are. After reading the lore book about this world it makes alot more sense why there doesn't appear to be straightforward male/female. The lore book answers alot of questions as to why the creators implemented the things they did.
There are some qol things that can be remedied over time. I have played many games where sometimes the crafting/harvesting take a little longer and little kinks are here and there. But all games start off this way. The people that play will help shape the growth of this game, because they see the possibilities. I am excited to see where this goes. I am also glad it is one of those games I can just relax with - no speeding to get to end game/ no need to feel pressured to get the best of everything. Enjoy it.
Steam User 10
The Wagadu Chronicles is an MMORPG with a huge focus on role playing. What makes it especially appealing is that it's set in a fantasy world inspired by myths and legends from the African continent (the name itself is derived from the Wagadou Empire after all). This alone sets it apart from a gazillion other games set in medieval Europe-based settings.
As said, the game focusses heavily on role playing and incorporates the DnD 5th Edition rules. Where most other games make you slash dozens of monsters right from the get-go, The Wagadou Chronicle makes you earn it. In fact, the first couple of hours you will be spending honing your crafting skills before you are at a point where you can get hold of a suitable weapon and armor (make sure to check out the market, though, to buy items from other players). And even then, combat isn't easy and very much alike those in a real DnD campaign. So, you're better off chatting up other players and organize a group for extended looting.
The art style of the game can only be described as beautiful and the music is really well-composed and suited for the game.
Be aware, though, that this game is still in Early Access and still needs some polish. This game offers you plenty of possibilities but, in its current state, does a poor job in explaining them to the player. But I am sure this will be improved with further iterations.
Steam User 7
Not bad for a game in its first week of Early Access. I'm hoping the character creator gets significantly better though as it's abysmal for a game so heavy into RP.