'Part of the inspiration was to just to take some of those ideas, and some improvements that we wanted to make, and put it into a fantasy setting, because we felt like that would fit better.' But the three got together at thanksgiving one year and sketched out the rough idea of what would become Wildermyth. But we wanted a lot more detail about the soldiers.' Nate was working for Riot Games at the time, while Annie at Heavy Iron and then at Gamesalad, and Doug was finishing college. 'And we love the stories that are generated.

'All three of us had been playing X-COM a lot,' says Nate, who co-owns Worldwalker Games with Annie, and is the primary programmer on the project.

But when Nate Austin, his wife Annie, and his brother Doug began developing the game around eight years ago, the weight of emphasis between storytelling and combat was very much the other way around. Wildermyth is an inspired example of narrative design, with some nifty tactical combat to boot. In this spellbinding RPG, players guide bands of heroes through a lifetime of adventure, embarking on dozens of short, whimsical quests wherein they grow, age, and quite literally evolve, with the potential to transform into walking trees, celestial beings, and anthropomorphised crows. Worldwalker Games' Wildermyth gets closer to that goal than most. A truly dynamic story is a goal game designers have strived toward for decades.

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