Wantless: Solace at World's End

Wantless is a fast-paced tactical RPG set in a post-apocalyptic world, tasking the players with finding nigthmarish horrors inside of tormented minds. It was developed by Drop Rate since 2021 and was released in Early Access on Steam two years later, with help from Twin Sails Interactive.

Plot

Wantless is set in a post-apocalyptic future. Its protagonist is Eiris, one of the last surviving Transposers - medics able to venture into their patients' minds to alleviate their suffering, erase their memories or even their consciousness.

Mechanics

The maps in Wantless are divided into tiles. Combat is turn-based, pitting us against horrors thought up by our patients' tormented minds. The gameplay outside of combat takes place in real-time.

As in other tactical RPGs, characters have a limited number of action points they can spend on various actions. Wantless complicates this mechanic a bit, however.Every action points the player spends gives an action point to all the enemies on the map, which can prove disastrous. If a character defeats an enemy, however, they're the one who get that action point.

This system lets players maximize the potential of a single turn while punishing them for unnecessary moves. Encounters are made more complex through the environment (which can make the battle easier or more difficult; we must watch out not to accidentally destroy our patient's treasured memories) and the synapses system, used to create skills. Players can freely choose their abilities' effects, AoE, cost and cooldown, giving them many ways to deal with enemies.

After each battle they can also pick a nerve impulse - a useful effect, such as healing, a protective shield or a temporary buff.

We'll spend most of our time outside of combat in our base, where we can create skills, equipment and check the condition of our patients, who serve as explorable stages. Each stage has a different difficulty, rewards and length. We must take these factors into account to not let the task overwhelm us.

Technical aspects

Stylistically, Wantless may resemble Darkest Dungeon, despite the different perspective. The monsters haunting us patients are reminiscent of cosmic horrors created by H.P. Lovecraft. The color palette is dark and gloomy, fitting, given our patients' difficult lives and nightmarish scenarios playing out in their minds.