Craft Custom Word Combos in a Turn-Based Anime Adventure
Are you ready to shout out your attacks like you’re starring in your favorite anime? Player beta sign-ups for Wander Stars, the word-combo-powered turn-based RPG from Paper Castle Games, are officially live starting today. The beta will kick off next month, giving fans a chance to dive into a bigger slice of the cosmic anime-inspired journey.
I’ve mentioned it several times in my lists and even included it among the 22 most promising JRPGs of 2025. Wander Stars isn’t your usual RPG grind. Instead of selecting preset moves, you collect words and mix them together to build your own flashy, over-the-top combo attacks—kind of like spelling out your own Dragon Ball Z finishers. With over 200 words to gather, the possibilities are nearly endless. Super! Fire! Kick! It’s all up to your imagination (and spirit level).
The upcoming beta offers a larger chunk of the game than the demo, including new story content, new areas of the universe to explore, and loads of juicy new combos to experiment with. It’s the perfect time to join Ringo, Wolfe, and a wild cast of spacefaring rivals as they chase down pieces of the mysterious Wanderstar Map, one “episode” at a time.
Wander Stars draws heavily from the anime classics the developers grew up watching—Dragon Ball Z, Cowboy Bebop, Sailor Moon, One Piece—blending nostalgia with a refreshing deck-builder twist. Each episode plays out like a standalone anime arc, complete with new maps, procedurally generated battles, and story events that make every run feel fresh.
Interested players can sign up for the beta here. Wander Stars is planned for a full release in 2025, published by Fellow Traveller. Until then, it’s time to sharpen your vocabulary—and your Kiai spirit. Below is an overview via Steam, screens, and trailer.
About ThE Game
Join Ringo, a young martial artist looking for her brother, and Wolfe, a mysterious scoundrel running from his past, as they join forces in an unlikely partnership to collect the pieces of the fabled Wanderstar Map. Across 10 “episodes” of anime-inspired adventure, Ringo and Wolfe will have to work together to find answers, make up for past mistakes, and travel across the universe in search of their goal. And who knows, maybe they’ll learn how to get along at some point!
Trained in the ways of Kiai, a magical form of martial art and also the universe’s most exciting form of televised entertainment, Ringo can combine words to create customized attacks in intense turn-based battles. During her race across the universe you’ll expand Ringo’s vocabulary, equip Pep Up bonuses earned through honorable victories and level up her spirit power. Defeat or befriend a cast of fearsome space pirates, mysterious scoundrels, cute witches, high school delinquents, talking crows, and skilled martial artists on your way to becoming a Kiai master.
SUPER SPECIAL FIRE KICK! Battles in Wander Stars are settled through a unique combat system that combines the structure of turn-based JRPGs, the strategic layer of deckbuilders and the spectacle of animes like Dragon Ball Z.
Create custom attacks by combining words up to the limit of your spirit level. The more spirit you have, the more slots you have to place words into and the more powerful and complex actions you can take.
ACTION WORDS do something e.g. KICK, BLOCK or ITEM.
MODIFIER WORDS modify actions e.g. SUPER (+1 damage), FAST (reduces cooldown) or HUGE (attacks all opponents).
ELEMENTAL WORDS add an elemental impact and status effects e.g. FIRE (burn) or WATER (wet).
All words have cool downs and opponents might be weak or strong against specific attacks or specific elements. You won’t know which until you engage them in battle so you need to be prepared to improvise.
With over 200 words to collect across the game there is a near infinite number of possible unique attacks to make. Things start off easy but as you expand Ringo’s vocabulary you’ll need to carefully select which words you take into battle, building strategies around your mix of categories, blend of offensive and defensive words, giving yourself options to manage your opponents weaknesses and strengths, consider optimizing the juggling of cool downs and, of course, which attacks sound the coolest.
The result is an accessible, immediately fun but deep combat system.
The core ethos of the Kiai martial art is to fight with honor. Defeating an opponent with honor can turn the most heated of rivals into the fastest of friends! Befriend your rivals to earn their words of encouragement in the form of useful Pep Ups which can be equipped to give you special bonuses in combat.
Travel the universe on a rollercoaster adventure as you seek the pieces of the Wanderstar map, Ringo’s lost brother and the answers to Wolfe’s mysterious past.
This is a tale of mystery, adventure, betrayal, redemption, unlikely allies, twists, turns, surfing capybaras, health-restoring empanadas, forgotten shopping lists, rifts in space AND rifts between lovers.
Along the way you’ll build a found family of colorful characters, each with their own thing going on. They might not all get along at first, but that’s nothing a thrilling space adventure can’t fix! And even with the trail gone cold, take heart, for these wandering stars are bound to find each other…
Wander Stars is inspired by the anime the developers grew up watching in 1990’s Venezuela and shows like Dragon Ball Z, Cowboy Bebop, Sailor Moon, One Piece and more.
It plays out across 10 “episodes”, each of which takes between 60-90 minutes to complete. Each episode features a map to explore with procedurally generated battles, special events and other secrets to find along with the main story events.
Tackle your playthrough an episode at a time or binge the whole thing in one go – the choice is yours.
You can even replay episodes to find all the side adventures, NPCs, and party member banter you might have missed! Try new paths as you explore ever-changing maps with randomized special events, lurking rivals, and tantalizing treasures. The experience is never quite the same!
