Sandwalkers - roguelike turn-based exploration game

Games
1

Sandwalkers is an upcoming caravan management game by the makers of Legend of Keepers.
You do roguelike runs with caravans of procedurally generated adventurers on procedural maps.

Both graphics and combat basics look similar to Legend of Keepers. Caravan member have distinctive jobs that supposedly “greatly influence the gameplay” options you have. Your travels and decisions do influence future runs and there is a bigger overarching goal of repairing the broken climate.
The pixel art in this is very nice and the backgrounds are gorgeous.

Legend of Keepers was so close to being good for me. I like pixel/drawn art so the excessive style was no drawback for me.
The base design of Keepers was a real downer though, with combat being defined by very intentional attrition and one shot abilities on your team rendering a lot of the monster building moot. I’m hoping the more… protective approach towards caravan members solves that very feelbad issue.

2

This looks far more interesting than legend of me, but I’m not a fan of dungeon keeper type games.

3

What makes you think it is a dungeon keeper like game? Looking at the video and screen shots, it doesn’t look anything like dungeon keeper, at least the old bull-frog Dungeon Keeper I am thinking of.

4

Legend of Keepers is described as a “dungeon manager”. It is focused on mostly the combat though.

It has a demo, which while quite old still shows the basic gameplay.

5

I’m morally opposed to “Legend of Keepers” solely on the basis of the name.

6

Me too. I was always stuck playing the keeper when I was younger, because they didn’t trust me anywhere else. Gah. I hated being the keeper.

7

Yes, they really should have called it Jeepers Keepers.

8

I’m not sure I understand what a Keeper game is - but this looks like not that? I’m not totally following your comment, to be honest.

I don’t know anything about their previous game, Legend of Keepers, which I only just found out about today and seems like a silly/Dungeon Keeper type of deal with humor - the kind of humor I haven’t enjoyed in games like this since, well, Dungeon Keeper. Or maybe Dungeons of Dredmore.

But Sandwalkers seems like a really cool game, just based on the screenshots and description. I’ll keep it on my radar for sure, thanks @Therlun for putting it there!

9

I was qualifying the fact that I wasn’t interested in legend of keepers by saying that it wasn’t really my thing to start with.

@Scotch_Lufkin this game looks cool, much more than the previous game I was referencing here

10

Gotcha - makes sense. I try not to let previous work influence if a studio is coming out with something I will like when they have made things I don’t, but I’m not always successful. See literally everything that has ever come out of Cyanide Studio. :) I will admit Legend of Keeper doesn’t do anything for me, but this one did give me a positive vibe when I first laid eyes on it, and my first instincts like that are rarely wrong (for me).

11

Sandwalkers currently has a short playable demo at Gamescon. The first closed beta phase will start on their discord after Gamescon ends (limited number of people at the start, expanding as they go).

The game got a notable change in the exploration part, with a switch from a node based to a hex based map.
Devlogs and dev art spotlights:
https://imgur.com/a/QZYscgp
https://imgur.com/gallery/YwC6c5K

There also is a short glimpse at more gameplay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQyXEQa6SYA

12

So they are doing a Kickstarter? I wonder why they can’t go straight to early access…

The new maps look nice.

13

This has a (separate) demo now to promote their Kickstarter campaign.

It features a handful of random events, a mini questline, four base characters and 2 unlockable ones.
I do like the demo, it is less constrained and frustrating than Legend of Keepers. The survival mechanics are very basic but there are some interactions with classes and traits already. The meta progression is mentioned but not implemented yet.

14

I know this isn’t the place for the topic but this game got me thinking: while I really like early access (and fully understand many don’t), having a Kickstarter AND early access seems really strange to me. I’m interested in the game, but not completed to kickstart it when I know EA is coming.