We Are The Caretakers - ecological wildlife defense turn-based strategy RPG

[Infinitron]

http://www.wearethecaretakers.com

Spoiler

We Are The Caretakers is an afrofuturist squad management RPG. Assemble an arcane team of protectors in squad-building systems inspired by Darkest Dungeon, Ogre Battle, and XCOM. Defend the endangered animals your world relies on in strategic turn-based combat. Define your approach to a global resistance by balancing your reputation, funds, research, animals and alliances. We Are The Caretakers is a challenging strategy RPG fusion that asks you to protect a planet by fighting for the people, animals and ecosystems that inhabit it.

• AFROFUTURIST UNIVERSE: Former Activision-Blizzard artist Anthony Jones brings breathtaking afrofuturist style and human empathy to a complex sci-fi world.
• REPUTATION SYSTEM: Every action affects how others see the Caretakers. Do they fear you? Or will they support your quest to protect the endangered Raun, and decide the fate of the world?
• TURN-BASED ENCOUNTERS: Balance force with diplomacy in an innovative turn-based combat system. Live with the consequences as you deal with the messy reality of animal conservation.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• SQUAD BUILDING: Assemble up to 9 squads of characters with diverse traits, weaknesses, abilities, and personalities. Train and upgrade your Caretakers across 20+ unique job classes.
• GROW YOUR HEADQUARTERS: Meet leaders, research technologies, and recruit allies in your sci-fi HQ. Balance their conflicting demands to save our world.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• NUANCED NARRATIVE: In our morally-complex world, the individuals outside your squad matter as much as the rangers you deploy on each map.
• GENERATED WILDLIFE: The challenging and procedurally generated survival mode brings never-ending ways to play.
• YOU GET A BABY RAUN: It will nuzzle against your bed long after it grows too large to reasonably do so. It is adorable.

 

[Haba]

We wuz kangmaker: Wakanda

 

[Eisen]

It's just a burning memory

 

[Tyranicon]

I kinda wish they would've just made the game about modern-day wildlife protection agencies vs. poachers.

 

[Young_Hollow]

Lost a lot of interest on reading that its an ''afrofuturist'' game, which unfortunately seems to mean that its just ''black'' sci-fi with American centric interpretation of a non-existent unified African culture.

Also, its confusing because the ritual scarring that makes skin look like crocodile skin is a practice of Papua New Guinean tribes if I remember Nat Geo correctly. Cultural appropriation maybe?

 

[Mazisky]

I don't like to be rude on devs because I know how much time and effort it takes to develop a game, but those are the least captivating theme and artstyle I've ever seen in a videogame.

Trying to be original at all costs is a double-edged sword.

Just go fantasy or classic sci-fi if the alternative is this

 

[Poseidon00]

Great idea, would love a game about murdering people who disrespect my land and animals, looks like shit and I hate it. 7/10 might try

 

[Alienman]

Gotto protect that afrofuturist triceratops.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Battlescape looks cramped and boring.
Meh.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

I've had more visually appealing bowel movements.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the characters look like cheap knockoff warframes

 

[Malamert]

Looks like dime a dozen shovelware.

 

[Drowed]

What struck me most is how crude the animations in the battles are. Or is it just me? Honestly, it reminded me of this:



Especially the kick attack. I know they are an Indie group, but... Damn, that was 1997.

 

[thesecret1]

Lost a lot of interest on reading that its an ''afrofuturist'' game, which unfortunately seems to mean that its just ''black'' sci-fi with American centric interpretation of a non-existent unified African culture.

Also, its confusing because the ritual scarring that makes skin look like crocodile skin is a practice of Papua New Guinean tribes if I remember Nat Geo correctly. Cultural appropriation maybe?

It's what happens when you pick a theme because you want to virtue signal rather than because you are genuinely interested in it

 

[the mole]

I'm curious what are the demographics that play turn based strategy games

 

[Young_Hollow]

Lost a lot of interest on reading that its an ''afrofuturist'' game, which unfortunately seems to mean that its just ''black'' sci-fi with American centric interpretation of a non-existent unified African culture.

Also, its confusing because the ritual scarring that makes skin look like crocodile skin is a practice of Papua New Guinean tribes if I remember Nat Geo correctly. Cultural appropriation maybe?

It's what happens when you pick a theme because you want to virtue signal rather than because you are genuinely interested in it

Yeah, imagine being a dev working on a game and constantly finding fake reasons in your head about why you're wasting your time on shit like this when you could be realizing your own ideas instead.

 

[the mole]

do they use the power of friendship and plants to fight or do they pick up a scary assault rifle

 

[Haba]

I kinda wish they would've just made the game about modern-day wildlife protection agencies vs. poachers.

You could just use JA2 engine for it.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...-strategy-wants-you-to-imagine-a-better-world

We Are The Caretakers' Afrofuturist strategy wants you to imagine a better world
Care play.

There's been a recent rise in Afrofuturist stories. Authors such as Nnedi Okorafor, N.K. Jemisin and Rivers Solomon have become wildly popular, and Marvel's Black Panther celebrated an African perspective on science fiction on the big screen. Games are set to follow - Furi by The Game Bakers and Beautiful Desolation by the Brotherhood are two examples of games interested in the culture and visuals of a continent that too often gets overlooked. Similarly, We Are The Caretakers, which entered Steam Early Access on April 21 (and which will also be released for Xbox Series X|S), actually isn't set in Africa, but a whole new world called Shadra, an analogy for real places and events, that focuses on telling a story about poaching and conservation efforts, a hitherto unique topic for a game.

We Are The Caretakers offers XCOM as a point of comparison, but while there are similarities in the hub and squad management, what I played felt like a squad-based CRPG, first and foremost. Combat is round-based, and exploration on the map involves your squad leader leading the way, with the rest of the group trailing behind. The game's character design is immediately striking - everyone wears large, colourful masks of gleaming metal, shaped in intricate ways, as well as matching, sleek suits. I can't help but wonder how these characters see, or move with these massive things on their heads, but they look beautiful and strong. You take control of the fittingly named Conductor, the freshly minted head of the Caretakers, a unit dispatched around Shadra to stop poachers in their tracks. Early on, your squad gains a Raun, a rhino-dinosaur(?) hybrid, and member of the species you're committed to protect. It is of course unbearably cute.

Developer Heartshaped Games invested ample time in researching the complex topic of illegal wildlife trade and the work rangers do to combat it, and works with a diverse roster of collaborators, among them narrative director Xalavier Nelson Jr., who sees the Early Access period as a chance to listen to the community to make sure the concerns Afrofuturism deals with are authentically represented. "It was important to us to authentically represent the rangers we spoke to and the landscapes they worked in," says Heartshaped Games founder Scott Brodie. "We knew how important technology was to modern conservation and anti-poaching efforts, so we were always leaning towards sci-fi as a genre."

We Are the Caretakers has an overall positive vision, one that involves rangers being widely respected authority figures, anti-poaching rules being widely known, and justice swift. In combat, you can attack either your opponents will or stamina, which means you're not out to kill. You can detain every unit and decide what to do with them at your hub - you may accept bribes, collect research that you can invest in new technology, or reform and recruit poachers. Your reputation, represented by a bar at the top of the hub, needs to be kept in mind with every decision you make.

The preview build I played feels very early - combat, while not overly long, is pretty slow and doesn't offer a lot of options yet. The every-present XCOM comparison led me to expecting something a lot more challenging, and the world map you travel looks a bit bare. But these issues are fixable, and I can see the game growing in features. There is already a fantastic variety of concerns displayed in the conversations characters have with each other and the mission descriptions, and I'm eager to see more ways the theme is going to influence gameplay. We Are The Caretakers has tremendous potential, both from a gameplay perspective and as a much-needed new narrative and means to raise awareness.

"It was an early goal [of ours] to create a game about a real-world topic and give back via awareness and charitable giving," Brodie says. "We've now committed 10 percent of net revenue from the game to Wildlife Conservation Network's Rhino Recovery Fund."

 

[Infinitron]

We Are The Caretakers is releasing worldwide on Xbox Series X | S and Steam January 6th, 2023. We Are The Caretakers is a 3D grand strategy RPG set in a post-apocalyptic afrofuturist world. Recruit, upgrade & manage a secret faction of 100 high-tech protectors to defend the endangered creatures you rely on. Confront a mysterious alien civilization as the massive energy barrier protecting Shadra falls.

 

[Poseidon00]

This actually pisses me off because I love the concept of extreme ecological protectionism. But of course the first thing I read about it is how it is an "afrofuturist" setting. Developers cant do anything without mandatory nog worship. So tired of it

 

[cpmartins]

So, can I be as afrofuturistic as the africans? Can I do research on how to increase my slavedriving efficiency and how to train children to shoot AKs more effectively? No?
0/10 not realistic enough.

 

[good fucking shit happen]

Look at this fake ass jew trying to make Blacks appear cringe by spamming some soy tumblr game. Seething over the true Hebrews so hard.

 

[Infinitron]

Oh yeah, this was released.

 

[Tyranicon]

Oh yeah, this was released.