Wayward Strand

gosh, i want so much to like this and recommend it. and my problems could be temperamental -- please still give it a chance if things like slow pacing and long times between saves don't bother you and that works for your playstyle. this is a beautiful game with a beautiful idea. i really like the art and animation style. i love the setting, which is not just 1970s australia but a quite off the beaten path location. i like how confident the worldbuilding is. it's just that the game is not at all fun for me to play. each little thing takes . . . just a little bit too long, or sometimes a lot too long. the days are quite long and there's no saving at all during the entire day. you have to play the entire day or lose all of it when you exit. and while the voice acting is beautiful, hearing casey's naturalistic "um . . . "s all the time just gets awful after like 20 times. if it were like 40% tighter in design and editing, i'd absolutely love it. but i started day 2 and just was like, i don't even want to do this. it felt like homework.

I really like this game because it takes place over a peaceful long weekend inside a flying hospital. You slowly walk through quiet hallways, visit patients, and spend time listening to their everyday conversations, memories, and personal stories. It’s a very calm and relaxing experience, and it never feels rushed or stressful. What makes it especially interesting is how real the characters feel. Everyone has their own routines and things going on at the same time, so it feels less like a scripted game and more like you’re actually visiting a living place. As time passes, different events happen around the airship, so you can’t see everything in one playthrough. That made me slow down and just choose where I wanted to go and who I wanted to spend time with. I also really enjoyed how much focus there is on small, ordinary moments. You sit with patients, listen to their stories, and slowly get to know them through casual conversations. I never felt like I needed to rush or chase achievements. I just enjoyed being there and taking my time with each interaction. The game also made me think a lot about companionship, especially for older people. It reminded me of my own grandparents, and the time I spent with them just sitting together, drinking tea, and talking about everyday things. At the time those moments felt simple, but now I realize how meaningful they actually were. This game really captures that feeling of quiet presence and human connection. It turns very ordinary moments into something warm and memorable. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys peaceful, story driven games that focus more on people and emotions than on action or challenge.

I was really hoping for the best with this game. I personally love going to senior homes and talking with the people. However, this game is very straight-forwards. I love the animations and the back stories from all of the residents. The only part I don't like is the fact of not being able to exit the game without losing all of the data and the conversations you had with the people on board. It is also very slow and tedious. 6/10 from my opinion

RECOMMENDED, BUT WITH MAJOR CAVEAT. This is a slow-paced game that focuses on story and conversations. There is no major excitement here, no action, no puzzles. It's more of a slice-of-life experience than a dramatic narrative, so if you want those aspects in your games, you probably will not enjoy this one! While somewhat of an oversimplification, the best way I can describe my experience with this game is "visiting a nursing home simulator". Going through this game felt not unlike going to visit my elderly grandparents. It's the perfect example of the sort of unconventional experience that the indie game scene has made possible; a true slice-of-life with none of the aspects that make for successful mass-market titles, but making and distributing this game to the right audience is now possible enough that it can still exist. And I'm glad it does exist. I only played through the game once so I've missed a majority of the content there is to see. It was far from being the most engaging experience I've ever had with a game, and I was ready to move on by the time I was done, but I did enjoy my time with it and will probably one day visit it again. While I give this a thumbs up, it's really only an experience that certain types of gamers will enjoy. Hopefully this review has given you enough information to know if you're one of those types. :)

It was a slow and calm game. I wish it would have more chapters, will be missing all those characters and that airy hospital. :(

👍

A good and unique game about interacting with patients in an airborne hospital. In this game you play as Casey, a 14 year old girl tasked by her mother to spend some time and help with the patients for 3 days. I think there's around 8-10 people that you can interact with, not sure about the number, but some characters only have a limited amount of conversation (like the chef Devin) Control is mostly point and click, with lots of dialogue options to choose from, some of the options have time limits though, but there is no death scenes, just that your dialogue options and who you chose to spend time with will affect the conversation at the end of the game. The Pros: -The game has so many possibilities, each of the patients has their own stories to tell, and you can also know more about a patient by talking with another patient, and some people may be in a different location depending on the time of day, so it's pretty fun getting to stalk them and also knowing their stories. - Game is fully voiced, and the voice acting is great in my opinion! - Lots of various characters on the ship, each with their own quirks/ personality, like Esther who is into mystical things, mr.avery who is a very talkative and nosy writer, and there's also dr.bouchard is pretty sad. I think the most normal one would be Ida, which is the typical cute, kind granny who knits you a sweater every year. I don't know who's my fave but most of the characters are likable in their own way. - Cute, cozy, cartoony style of artwork with amazing details in the background. Colors are simple but classic, nice to look at. Animations are nice too. - Music is pretty good in my opinion, each scene or character will have a particular music playing which is cool. - Controls are mainly point and click Cons : - No manual save options, like your game will only be saved AFTER you completed the day, which is huge bummer and also a pain when you are trying to unlock new paths/ stories but have to replay the whole day again (1 day in the game is like maybe 2-3 hours-ish?) - No skip/ fast forward option, which is also annoying when you've already seen a scene and just wanted to get over it, you can't even skip the beginning movie scene =( - Casey's notes gets wiped clean each time you replay the game, meaning that you can't track down which options/ tidbits that you have unlocked about a character, which i think is a waste because if they were kept, at least you'll know what else is there be unlocked in the game. Because of this, unlocking all the steam achievements is quite a challenge. - Some actions/ animations is a bit slow, like for the animation to listen in, it takes about 3-5 seconds to complete and by that time part of the conversation that you want to listen to is gone =( - Ending is not really that varied, it's mostly about the same and the only difference is what can be talked about with Casey's mum at the end. Your actions or choice of dialogue only affects what stories/ tidbits that you can know mostly, not really affecting the outcome of the characters in the end. To summarize, i do really love the game and the concept, just that the lack of manual save and no option to skip/ fast forward is making it a bit annoying at times. 8/10! Would love it if there's a sequel where Casey returns to the ship and there is more characters to interact with!

A slow and sweet game set in a nursing home that happens to be on an air ship tethered to the ground in Australia, it's a clockwork little world in a way that reminded me of classic game The Last Express, where characters are on schedules and have activities all their own and you have to make choices about where to go and who to talk to and what to see. I recommend this game because there are sweet scenes and interesting characters and a charming design. I'm glad I experienced it. But I can't say it's an especially strong recommendation, because, this game just needed a little *more* in every direction. More drama -- there is some drama to your character's relationship with her mother, and each of the residents of the nursing home has some interesting backstory to them, but nothing really seems to matter and there is no problem to solve. More depth to the world -- it's interesting that this nursing home is set on an airship that seemingly arrived out of nowhere, but, as far as I can tell...that's it? There's not much more backstory to it than that, and it doesn't feel like anything would be different about the story if this nursing home were on the ground. And it needed more options for players. The game only saves when you complete one of the three days of plot, each of which takes about an hour, which is frustrating. And, I assume because everyone is on such a schedule, there's no way to lightly fast forward through dialogue sequences or actions your character is taking, which means a lot of the 4 hours I spent playing this game was just me twiddling my thumbs as I waited for a character to spit out all their dialogue, or for my character to slowly navigate the stairs. There's enough charm and warmth to this game that I felt it was worth my time and interest, but I did leave it feeling like with a few more nudges in the right direction, this could've become a much stronger experience. I am curious to see what this team does next, I hope they build on the successful parts and make something better.

J'ai enfin terminé le jeu à 100%, ouf. Wayward Strand c'est un petit jeu très mignon, un peu sous-côté selon moi au niveau de la qualité du scénario et de l'écriture des personnages. Tout le monde a une histoire, des secrets, des envies et des regrets ici. Votre première partie sera différente de votre deuxième, et en une seule fois vous ne pourrez pas tout explorer, ni découvrir les histoires de tout le monde (et surtout pas terminer tous les succès.). On incarne ici Casey, une jeune ado de 14ans qui est passionnée d'écriture et souhaite trouver un peu d'inspiration et pourquoi pas quelques anecdotes à publier dans le journal de son école. Toutefois, votre but premier ici n'est pas de rédiger un article, mais d'aider et tenir compagnie aux patients de cet hôpital volant, comme vous le demande votre mère. Frustration, sentiment d'injustice, mésentente sont au rendez-vous dans le cœur d'une adolescente, mais ne vous laissez pas embourber dans ces sentiments négatifs, et prenez le temps d'apprendre à connaître aussi bien les patients, que le personnel qui travaille au sein de l'établissement. Quelle histoire votre Casey va écrire ? ------ En ce qui concerne les amateurs de chasse aux succès, BON COURAGE. C'est largement faisable, mais tous les succès peuvent être manqués, et parfois il faut recommencer depuis le tout début pour en débloquer si vous n'avez pas fait le bon choix/mauvais timing/entendu une conversation qu'il ne fallait pas/parlé à la mauvaise personne/etc. C'est vraiment très fastidieux, et je ne sais pas si ça vaut le coup honnêtement. (perfectionnistes exclu.es) Comptez au moins 3 runs différents, et au moins 10h de gameplay pour obtenir tous les succès.

I had such a great time with Wayward Strand. It's a calm, tender, nuanced game. There is no drama or mystery here, just stories from people's lives slowly coming to an end. I really have to compliment the developers about creating such a sophisticated dialog and NPC schedule system, it was hard to keep track of all the beautiful people running around the facility. I constantly felt like I was missing so much, there was not nearly enough time to spend with everybody! There is definitely a replayability element to Wayward Strand. I rarely write reviews, but the game really deserves more positive reviews on Steam. As I've already said, it's a brilliant and intricate work. Thank you creating something so beautiful, so full of love and empathy towards of people. It's a real gem.