Wild Seas

From watching Captain Pugwash or being bathed by Matey Bubble Bath as a kid, I’ve always felt there’s a romantic idea about pirates. As I grew up, Disney taught me that they were playful scallywags who journeyed the Caribbean looking for treasure, rum and a brothel. This couldn’t be further from the truth, as pirates were only looking out for themselves, sailing the seas to pillage and plunder what they could. While games like Sea of Thieves and Lego Pirates of the Caribbean make you play as a cheeky rapscallion, it’s up to Wild Seas to tell it like it is, that pirates are bad. 

https://youtu.be/kuQuslsHFZE

Wild Seas is a tower defence game from DuDeeki Studio that challenges an adorable crocodile to defend multiple islands from marauding pirates. With its Cookie Monster eyes and a multi-purpose club that can cut grass, deflect bullets and shatter concrete, our plucky croc takes it upon itself to be the saviour that the tropical islands need. As it decides to resist the oncoming invasion from dastardly pirates who are looking to steal the island’s crystal and turn our protagonist into a nice pair of shoes.

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At A Glance

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Wild Seas is broken down into four islands, each having a set number of waves that grow in intensity. As soon as I entered the island, the preparation started, and I was given 90-seconds to begin constructing my defences around an imposing crystal. With zero coins to my name (crocodiles don’t have pockets), I first had to scour the landscape for treasure chests. Once I had a handful of coins, the merchant, who had taken refuge behind the giant crystal, was off to buy my first few towers. I then had to position them where I thought the attackers would come from.

The first few times this happened, it was an absolute farce. The game doesn’t prompt you that you have a time limit, or give you any indication of where the pirates will come from. It took me by surprise that a cute-looking game wouldn’t hold my hand and after I got over my initial shock (read as: 4 four defeats in a row during Wave 1), I rather enjoyed the old-school approach of dropping you into it. Once I did find my sea legs, Wild Seas became oh-so-more fun.

My plan in place, it was time to survive the onslaught of salty sea dogs who were trying to destroy my crystal. For the most part, the towers take care of themselves; they don’t break down and can be upgraded throughout each run to give them more power. There are only six to choose from; five are for attacking and one periodically heals the unnamed crocodile. The handful of offensive weapons vary in power, the cheapest being the less focused, scattering bullets everywhere, and the most expensive typically one-shots everything in the vicinity. The defences are simple to understand and I quickly worked out what each one did and where it was best placed to help. This is essential, as each wave of enemies became gradually more demanding, meanwhile my croc-buddy was running around the screen trying to collect loot and batter any pirate who got too close. 

The baddies themselves were varied enough; the basic privateers with a one-shot pistol typically started the waves, and as I progressed, pirates became larger with better weapons, like a rapid-fire shotgun that pumped three rows of three bullets in quick succession. You can deflect most bullets with a swing of your bat, but it becomes a nightmare trying to time a swing to get all of the bullets out of the way. At the end of each level was an additional boss wave, which was either really impossible or stupidly easy, depending on how you positioned your weaponry. If you lose your health or shatter the crystal at any point, you’ll be hoofed back to the beginning, and while there are no spoilers here, I will advise you to make sure you have every type of turret on the island. With there only being four islands, once you have worked out a viable strategy, you’ll be rolling the credits in no time.

Despite this, the game encourages you to come back and replay each island as you try different approaches. This is partly down to the simple nature of the gameplay, coupled with the beautiful graphics which left me thinking Wild Seas is simply lovely to look at. The top-down perspective makes the vibrant levels pop with colour and although each map is small in scope, they give the impression that a larger world could be just beyond the horizon. The characters are distinct from one another and really well designed, and while the pirates are plenty, the star of the show is our loveable crocodile, with its vacant look that reminded me of Ed the hyena from The Lion King.

The soundtrack is by far the worst thing about Wild Seas. It is an 8-second loop of what I can only think of as “Generic Foreboding Noise 3”, and after 30-seconds of listening to the deep droning, I had to mute my TV. The only time I turned the volume up was to check if it changed when I set sail to another island and, spoiler alert: it doesn’t. I understand that solo and small devs might not have the funds to create or licence music, but if you’re going to use stock audio, might I suggest something more piratey? Thankfully that is the only issue I had with Wild Seas, as everything else was more delightful and well presented.

On the face of it, Wild Seas seems like one of those cute indie titles that will be a calm and relaxing time. After a few minutes, you’ll understand that this isn’t the case and the game is surprisingly demanding, with elements of resource management and positioning of the defences taking priority. Sure, it’s over far too quickly and the God awful “music” can return to the sea, but if you’re in the market for a budget tower defence game that is fun and offers addictive gameplay then you can’t go wrong with Wild Seas.

In the interest of full disclosure, VGamingNews was provided with a copy of the game in order to conduct this review.

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