Thread by @ElectronDance

Right, so, #Wildfire then. A 2D stealth 'em up with a ton of environmental interaction.

It's available from Steam (store.steampowered.com/app/431940/Wil…) and GOG (gog.com/game/wildfire).

This thread brought to you by a free press copy (thx @GTElephant).

The pixel art of #Wildfire is pretty *lush* and plenty of work has gone into visual contrast to ensure important aspects are subtly highlighted.

(Pickpocket glint is one of my favourites. I'm a bloody sucker for pickpocket glint.)

I'm always wary of games that echo that 90s console look because I worry they'll go Full JRPG and you never go full JRPG. You know "hi, i'm jonny, i like cats"

The opening #Wildfire cutscene got me onboard quickly. And while the story is serious bizness, it's not *that* serious.

Conversation isn't voiced but #Wildfire soldiers do yell. Their screams make them sound unhinged, though. In fact, all of the soldier sounds seem to have volume turned up to 11 compared to everything else. Offputting but not end of world.

So #Wildfire is not about killing and there's even a Not Killing reward each level, although 'tis death by accident is common. If you scare a soldier off a cliff or into a pit of spikes then, yeh, they gonna be deaded.

uh you can also burn them dead you cruel bast

Stealth in the first part of #Wildfire involves hiding in the grass, hanging off rope bridges, choosing alternate routes and... fire.

Fire can provide ingress but also scares soldiers. Be wary: scaring can end in murder and toasted grass is noisy and cannot be hidden in.

I tend to use fire sparingly and not just because you can only burn something once. When you "embrace fire" you remove it from the #Wildfire environment, so if you don't use it right, she be GONE. No second chances - and it takes three clicks to undo to a checkpoint/autosave.

You can take fire from the something you have set ablaze: so once I set fire to something I try to "grab it back" straight away. But you have to be CLOSE to do this in #Wildfire & not possible if you threw fire from a distance.

Also: you carrying fire stops you clambering through small passages. And don't even think about swimming with it. #Wildfire

Fire is a finite resource with transport constraints. No quick reload. This means I feel #Wildfire discourages me from experimenting with the systems and, as I discover now and then, there are surprises in the game's world simulation.

Okay, so there's loads more #Wildfire to talk about and some amazing moments to share. But I think that's a good start for now...

Okay, it's #Wildfire time again!

Sooo I didn't discover panning the camera until later and the game doesn't tell you about it until even later. Without it, I found I was starting to leap before you look - simply because you can't see what lies further along in the level.

You also get visual pulses whenever you make a sound in #Wildfire and it's often difficult to gauge how far that pulse will reach.

I think, though, about Thief. There was no clear "sound radius" around me; you just had to get the feel of it.

It's a very subtle issue but I think #Wildfire's sharp 2D aesthetic suggests precision and you're not going to get that here.

So whenever you foul up because you gauged the sound wrong, it feels like the game is at fault and not you for rushing, you impatient shit.

My main problem, though, is a personal one: #Wildfire floods the controller. The left stick does movement, the right stick aim, buttons grab fire, suck water, make smoke bomb, jump, run, carry, whistle.

Press the wrong button and

*poof*

your entire plan is in ruins.

The dense controller coupled with the irreversibility of most actions (e.g. using fire, getting seen) makes #Wildfire frustrating for me. It's going to need lots of dedicated play before I get good at it and it's STILL adding more controls, deep in the second chapter.

But is it really about best laid plans? There's a curious mystery and playfulness about the mechanics. #Wildfire says here you go, I've packed you some tools, but non-specific about how to use them.

You can burn everything down but it's not... necessarily the right thing to do.

There's no doubt #Wildfire dedicates a part of its soul to chaos. Sometimes more burns than you intended. Guards you scared off might end up hanging around spots which are more dangerous for you. Structures can collapse.

This is no clockwork world. It's a bomb primed to blow.

Once I climbed down a vine to the bottom of a #Wildfire level with a villager, intending to set them free then climb back up for a meteor shard. An archer targeted me, but I was too quick: he fired and hit the vine.

It *severed* while I was on it. I couldn't climb back up!

There was also that time I had to labouriously take four villagers across a level safely. This bit in #Wildfire was painful because taking each one down to a grassy area with two guards, one at a time. Climb down, pop in the grass, wait, climb up, repeat four times.

And then later I had to get them through this area and, gradually, my view changed.

I looked back at all this #Wildfire struggle and tension and felt euphoria. I felt *good* for getting these four villagers through. These are moments when it feels a little Thiefy for me.

Okay, I think that's enough #Wildfire for today. G'night.

It's been a while since I burned through some more #Wildfire - and I told you I was having difficulty remembering all the controls even though I had been continuously playing. With a big gap, am I screwed?

No because of this #Wildfire controls reminder in the corner of the display. Now I don't remember seeing this before, so it could be a new addition: if it is, it's really helpful.

The #Wildfire environmental modelling continues to surprise. Here I wanted to bubble myself up to the bridge to grab a meteor shard, but I missed my bubble. It rose, crashed through the bridge, alerted the guards, absorbed the shard and floated to the ceiling.

Reader, I laughed.

And the tricky optional #Wildfire challenges! Problem here is how to get fire to the shrine on the left - above (not shown) is a waterfall, the middle route is too narrow and the lower route involves falling into a pool. Tricky + fiddly to solve but 'twas enjoyable.

Not every #Wildfire level is simply "get to the exit". There's a lot of variety: to flood the cave you had to get fire from end of the level to the other - not a simple task.

This was a hard NOPE

#Wildfire

I'm engaged in #Wildfire now instead of being a "passive" player going through the motions. I've realised many of the challenges can't be done at the same time - they are effectively orthogoanl goals - and the physics chaos is intentional. So much goes wrong here. SO MUCH.

The unique optional objectives for each #Wildfire level along with the "no kills" and "no save reloads" objectives earn you upgrade points for your spirit abilities. Getting points for other abilities involves the in-game shrines; I like this asymmetry.

I now have the full set of #Wildfire powers - Earth has joined the fray. There really is a lot of power at your disposal and now my mind is blown with all the different approaches to some of these levels. And yet sometimes I have *no* idea how to do them.

I loved the silent reveal of what the #Wildfire Earth power does - you're left to figure it out alone (you can't progress without solving it). It generates one of those delightful gasps of discovery.

(Also, *snow that melts*.)

And still more meteor shards, each one offering a unique powerup. Some of the earlier "moar fire" upgrades just seemed to life harder, but now the #Wildfire changes seem more subtle. I'm much more pensive about choosing the shards to employ now.

And here are the enemy bobcats!

...sleeping.

The purple indicates the smell range which is small because they're sleeping. Honestly these bobcats are a fucking nightmare and I mean that in a good way.

Hopefully more #Wildfire to relate next week...

Hey, so #Wildfire is still in rotation - I've just taken on too many play projects in recent weeks. We escaped the mountains to discover all my screenshots were blank files so I can't tell you about some of the hijinx we got up to.

I killed so many people in the statue level.

Knock yourself out if you want to pursue perfect stealth or no kills but I'm literally escaping each level by the skin of my emergent gameplay chaos teeth in #Wildfire.

I start out with good intentions but then burn a vine by accident and all hell breaks loose.

Love it.

Right the first city level in #Wildfire is an interesting departure from the previous linear/open sprawls: it's like playing Deus Ex. Do you want ninja across the rooftops, creep through the sewers or tough out the city streets?

BTW toughing it out is the option of the stupid

Actually not that clear cut: you must read some notes scattered around the city.

The optional #Wildfire task here is to burn the buildings which, uh, is a real navigation problem if you have to go backwards!

Facepalm when I realised I'd forgotten to burn building 1

Given up on a "no death" #Wildfire run. I don't go out of my way to murder folk - in a previous level I *could* have chucked a sleeping bobcat into spikes - but if peeps accidentally collapse to their deaths it's out of my hands!

Dead bodies everywhere but "Undetected!" Yes.

I was pretty excited for the crematorium level in #Wildfire but it was frustrating. I was supposed to knock out a guard - but it wasn't clear how until I tried something that seemed unlikely. And when I screwed up there was a LOT of backtracking. Eventually had to restart.

The end is drawing close and these final #Wildfire levels have ramped up the difficulty. The third city level blocks reloads from failure and the fourth is perplexing me with resource problems.

It feels like winging it is not an option anymore.

Let me now speak of the end of #Wildfire.

The penultimate level had you skulking around rescuing prisoners. This required a fair bit of scouting - it's a large level. You don't have to rescue everyone but... you know.

I'm not sure I made the right choice, though. Villagers can't clamber around metal grating everywhere, so it's a LOT of back and forth. I did a few clever things to make it less painful but it was still a solid #Wildfire hour.

The final #Wildfire level, however, is a mixed bag. There's something to be said for the ambition of it, but let me just get this over with: the best action of the game is now behind you.

Without being too spoilery, you have to complete some tasks and the order in which you do them changes the structure of the later tasks. Clever!

Downside: the tasks are palpably more linear, with less scope for player innovation than previous #Wildfire levels.

And at the end there is a clever little surprise, which I really loved yet should have seen coming - but #Wildfire commits a terrible sin here that I cannot understand.

After an entire game of janky stealth-ish hijinks which often collapses into chaos... there is a boss battle.

I felt #Wildfire had been geared towards mistakes deliberately, forcing the player to improvise - with RUN AWAY being my evergreen backup option.

But now I had to be precise in a small space: one wrong jump and I'd be blasted & stunned - then blasted again before I could escape.

Maybe I could have made better choices but I was under constant pressure in a game which had encouraged me to be contemplative.

I'm not sure how long it took me to finish the final #Wildfire fight - and I was slowly improving with every iteration - but I was raging by the end.

But the final important takeaway here: forget #Wildfire's dodgy ending - the rest of the game is fabulous.

Don't try to 100% it - it's near impossible for the average player - just enjoy the chaos. And if you killed a few people along the way, well, nobody's perfect?

Good game.