Woodsalt is a creepy indie game with a '90s JRPG vibe

Update: This article quotes one of Woodsalt's developers, creative director George Berry, who said on the game's website that he wanted to create something like Persona 4 Golden, but without the "grindy nonsense." When we repeated that comment on Twitter with a link to this article, there was a significant, negative response. In a tweet responding to our post, Berry apologized for the comment.

"I hold the Persona series in extreme reverence," he wrote, explaining that he's a fan of the games and anime. "Regardless I absolutely come across as a smug wanker and I'm genuinely sorry and pretty goddamn embarrassed."

Original story: English indie developers Team Woodsalt have announced their first game, which is also called Woodsalt. It's about waking up 1,000 years after you fell asleep in a city inside a bubble, and also maybe about being haunted? 

The trailer has a lot of mood and not a huge amount of information, but fortunately the official website makes up for that. Here's Woodsalt's origin story, direct from one of its creators: "Basically I played Persona 4 Golden on my PS Vita (rest in peace, lil’ buddy) and wanted to make a game similar minus all the grindy nonsense. So, if you like Persona then you’ll like this. There’s loads of side characters who will like or dislike you depending on what you say and it will change how the story plays out."

Half of Woodsalt is taken up exploring the city of Nu-Terra, and the other half talking to NPCs. Apparently, "You can’t do everything in one playthrough (which will take around 9-10 hours) so you have to choose who you engage with. There are 3 main story endings and 22 side plot endings so yeah, it’s your story bro."

Woodsalt is due to be released on Steam on October 13.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

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