What happens when you combine a micromanagement strategy game with a tower defence game? A relaxing gaming experience. Wait! How on earth does that work!? The Wild Age somehow combines two intense genres to create a peaceful game.
Manage your camps fund and fend off nightly waves of enemies, all without a stress in the world. The Wild Age is set in the medieval age and tasks you to create a camp from scratch. While it does have micromanagement features, it doesn’t have enough to stress you out.
Back In The Wild Age
I love a game with character customisation and The Wild Age slightly falls short. You have the standard: male, female, skin colour choices but that’s about it. Instead of focusing on avatar, The Wild Age offers more cosmetic customisations. You can change your mount, coat of arms and even the coins you collect in the game. Having control of all these areas made me not miss changing my avatar. In fact, I preferred these customisations, it made the game feel more like my own.
Now that you are mounted up, here you are back in The Wild Age; a few coins to your name and a camp to create. After spending the few coins you have, you’ll gain back some freedom and the ability to control things. You’ll be able to manage recruitment, build new structures, assign roles and more, but the indie game never feels too hectic.
Day to day operations are beyond your concerns. Your archers, for instance, will hunt and fight without constant supervision. This keeps money flowing and your camp relatively safe. It also gives you the ability to explore and plan what you want to task your builders to create. There is a balance of doing the perfect amount so you don’t get bored.
The game is split into islands, all with their own main mission to accomplish. Once 
doing this you can stay and upgrade your camp or move onto the next island. Having an end goal creates a sense of purpose, while also not being the sole reason you are creating your camp. It will impact on how you create your camp, choosing more archers than farmers for example. The creation of the camp and your survival is your main focus, the main quest is like a side effect from doing well.
It Seems A Bit Mild
The Wild Age is not a game for an intense gaming session. It is additive and time does fly while playing but it is not for those seeking hardcore strategy. It is a mild game, but that doesn’t mean it is not fun. The variety of objectives keeps you hooked. As you play, for instance, you’ll be able to unlock more customisations – such as a giant rabbit as your mount or a fox as a pet.
There are also micromanagement features, such as having to keep your mount fed so it can run or creating that balance between the number of archers you’ll pay and the money you’ll spend on upgrading walls. This allows the game to demand something from the player, so as to keep you engaged but not too overwhelmed.
Each island has a main quest that will take time to complete. It is not a game that you rush through and then throw out. After completing the main quest, you have invested so much in that camp that you can’t help but want to continue.
Thanks to the easy to pick up controls and useful descriptions next to items, you won’t need to wait long before you feel comfortable with the game. In fact, you slowly learn the ways of The Wild Age just as you play. There is a lot you have to learn for yourself and you are encouraged to keep a camp going as some upgrades are only available after completing the main quest.
As for starting the adventure, you can purchase the game now for 14,99$ (or your regional equivalent) or give the demo a try for free. If you want a game that is engaging but relaxing, then I would definitely recommend The Wild Age!
