The Wayfinders - Spring 2025 Demo

(Although this game is playable in the browser, it's recommended that you download one of the folders below for the smoothest experience.)

Description

In a post-flood society, how do the remnants pick up the pieces?

Arkadia answers with foraging scraps and building a fortress of innovation.

In Lāhui, however, they seek to practice their kuleana, and try to cultivate what little land is left.

Such is the legacy that Kaimana has been taught. Yet he just wants to spend his summer hanging out with his friends!

Kaimana and his friends Sivasa and Emmalani live in a rebuilt version of the Hawaiian Islands: Lāhui. 

There, Kaimana grapples with his family’s legacy and growing responsibilities with his youthful vigor for freedom and fun.

Overview

PLATFORM: RPG Maker MZ

GENRE: Adventure

RATING: 10+ (Might raise to 13+ in future updates)

Dev Notes: I scrambled to make this, so while it’s not the most polished the core ideas are there. Ideally I could finish and release a later version of the demo in the future that has more core gameplay mechanics and story (including what the Arkadians are doing since I didn’t get to touch on that).

Controls

Hover your cursor over purple (vocabulary) or blue (lore-relevant) keywords in order to gain extra context of certain lines in the story.

Mouse Controls

Left Click - Interact/Move to tile

Right Click - Open Main Menu

Hold Left Click - Skip Text

Keyboard Controls

Spacebar/Enter/Z - Interact

Arrow Keys - Move

X/Esc - Main Menu/Go Back

Hold Shift - Skip Text

Game Origins

This was made for my university's senior project. In it my objective was to create character design sheets, and maybe even environment thumbnails of a story that I thought of: a sci-fi, post-apocalyptic story set in the future with three of the main five characters being of Pacific Islander descent. I also included a video game demo (made with RPG Maker MZ). This was part of a study on Pacific Islander Representation in Character Design.

Important Notes

Disclaimer: The only assets that are fully originally mine is the artwork, the custom UI style, and the story. The rest are from outside sources which have been credited in the ending of this demo.

Known Bugs/Issues from playing in-browser:

• Loading time between maps can take up to a few minutes at the longest. It's recommended you have as little software running alongside this game as much as possible when playing. 
  • There was one situation where I skipped over the text too fast and the next map couldn't load properly as a consequence.
• There's situations where the music cuts itself off and repeats again. The game should still be functional. I don't know how to remedy this as the BGM is .ogg files.
• There might be a delay in background music or character portraits appearing.
• Yes, the sledding map could've been better with multiple parallax layers, like with a layer above the player that the trees are. 
• If in doubt, refresh the page and start off from the last save/autosave point.