Wardens of Wen

The sun sets on Wen, hopefully it's not the last time. Wardens of Wen is a top-down wave-survival pixel ARPG set in a dark medieval fantasy world. Each Warden has a unique build and ability set. Choose your Warden and survive! Depending on your starting difficulty, your starting Round might change, normally you will start at Round 1, Wave 1. Defeating each wave will reward you will experience, and copper. Enemies themselves will occasionally drop from a large pool of items or potentially drop some helpful or even risky powerups! Each Wave has the potential for a random Mutator that will apply one of many modifiers to that Wave. Monsters themselves can also spawn as Elite variants with powerful Affixes. You are able to upgrade your abilities, your power, as well as build out your Talent Tree. Downtime is granted in-between rounds for the player, where they can spend time deciding on items to equip or items to sell at the Trader. Reach Round 10 for a boss fight, and every subsequent 10 Rounds thereafter. How long can the Wardens last? TUNED FOR CHAOS Wardens of Wen is designed around clear moment-to-moment choices: Auto-fire primary with distinct melee/ranged behaviors Upgradeable Abilities, upgradeable attributes, and unique Talent Trees Dash as a real combat verb, escape danger with your dash - rendering you invincible while dashing! Layered defenses: health with optional shields/armor, built to support different archetypes and enemy profiles. Status effects and buffs: burn/DoT, slow, stun, blind, lifesteal, attack-speed boosts, stasis/freeze effects, thorns/reflect-style interactions. Pickups that spike the tempo: heal, recharge, explosions, freeze, frenzy, and brief invulnerability or invisibility! Mutators & Affixes: Each run remains fresh with the mutator and affix system for waves and enemies alike Hotzones: Areas of the map which incur an increased gain of experience, copper, or both! Want to play it safe? Hug cover and kite. Want to play it fast? Take a hotzone and gamble your run on speed. Playable Characters Pick a Warden based on role and build preference. Current archetypes include: Jack (Tank, Melee): high survivability frontliner with a slower stride. Sally (Healer, Ranged): supportive sustain, balanced speed, lighter offense. Robin (Damage, Hybrid): swaps between melee and ranged stances. Maria (Assassin, Melee): extremely fast and lethal, but fragile. George (Builder): sturdier utility specialist focused structures and training units. Gunther (Support, Melee): long-reach polearm play with team-friendly tools. Ellis (Special): experimental kit with slight boosts across the board. Sage (Summoner, Ranged): calls beetles and snakes; fragile, protected by summons. Raven (Druid, Shifter): switches between human ranged and melee beast forms. Jade (Wizard, Elementalist): cycles elemental primaries with a high-energy spell kit. Each run is about turning a role into a build: stacking stats, exploiting hotzones, and choosing upgrades that reshape how you clear waves. You earn currency through kills, wave clears, dynamic events, and bounty targets. Currency is split into copper and gold with each tier supporting different layers of progression and spending decisions. Between waves you can: Buy raw stats and consumables. Roll upgrades that scale over the run (cost growth is data-tuned). Hire temporary allied mercs (optional system) whose cost and stats scale with the run. Interact with roaming boards between waves: Event Board: choose wave-level modifiers (mutators) for better rewards. Bounty Board: opt into extra elite/boss targets for bonus payout. Contract Board: take run objectives with tracked progress and gold rewards. Barter with the Trader to sell your loot, monster parts and buy some stuff with your hard-earned copper! (Trader located inside the building of the Eastern Maze) Maps are authored in Tiled and built to support both tactical routing and high-chaos kiting. Hotzones are invisible, map-authored bonus regions: Danger Pay: more currency Xp Surge: more XP Combo: mixed payout Terrain matters: Path tiles grant a small speed bonus (15%) Fire-tagged tiles can burn you (DoT) and are visually telegraphed The best builds don’t just “get stronger” - they learn where to fight. Fight Together. Adapt Together. Survive Together. Current Status: Coming Soon™ Multiplayer Co-op is planned for the final release. Launching in Early Access on Steam will help me refine and finalize the feature. Lobbies will support up to 6 players. Wen is a hard land of stone roads, torchlit outposts, and old oaths.