In the past few days, I tried the new, polished demo of Wicked Seed, a project I’ve been following for a while from the solo developer working under the name Dead Right Games. Since I think the game shows a lot of potential and its release date isn’t far off, I figured I’d put together this preview to help set the stage for launch.
I’ll start by saying it isn’t strictly a turn-based game. Exploration unfolds in real time, very much in the style of Resident Evil, and while the combat system also stays real-time, it uses a slow-motion mechanic to let you assign commands to the protagonist, an approach that fits together surprisingly well.
The story opens with the strikingly beautiful protagonist, Ella, who receives a letter from her brother asking her to meet him in Maine because strange things are happening at the company he works for. She hasn’t seen or heard from him in a long time, so she gets in her car and heads out to find him.
Things escalate quickly. You’ll soon be guiding Ella through a forest, following the unfolding events delivered through notes you discover along the way and the character’s voiced reactions, with several cutscenes that build the right amount of suspense.
Encounters with strange creatures intensify, and, piece by piece, darker, more dangerous details emerge to drive the narrative forward.
Wicked Seed is first and foremost an exploration game, one that actually rewards poking around. You’ll find items scattered across forests, cabins, and unexpected corners. At its core, there’s also a system where, when you rest, previously encountered monsters respawn, which ties into the bestiary.
Every monster has a weak point, and each time you manage to exploit it, up to the number listed in the bestiary, you’ll unlock permanent bonuses, like increased damage on AoE attacks or greater efficiency for brutal attacks, and so on. That respawn loop helps you unlock these bonuses and generally improve Ella’s performance.
From time to time, you’ll come across safe rooms where you can save, a workbench to upgrade weapons you find along the way, and the option to rest to fully recover your energy, at the cost of respawning nearby monsters. Alternatively, you can use empty coffee cups to recover energy without bringing defeated enemies back on the hunt.
There are figurines, items that permanently boost the character’s stats, keys, lockpicks for sealed doors and chests, and new outfits for Ella, who’s both well-endowed and great to look at. I won’t deny that after finding the jogging outfit, taking Ella for a stroll, and admiring her backside, it is genuinely pleasant, and I even feel a bit guilty toward my wife, but that’s another story.
In any case, all these items incentivize exploration. You’ll often need to combine some of them to unlock paths, and you’ll also find notes that add more context, revealing details about the story and what’s really going on.
Wicked Seed’s combat is essentially real-time, but when you open the command menu, everything slows down, not too much, letting you choose attacks, skills, weapon swaps, or item use.
Everything runs on stamina, which, in a sense, turns it into a kind of Final Fantasy–style ATB, or Parasite Eve, but you spend stamina on attacks and skills, and the bar refills over time, letting you issue new commands to Ella.
This slow-motion mechanic meshes perfectly with enemy traits and the hunt for their weaknesses, which let you knock them down temporarily to deal bonus damage.
For example, landing a hit on a monster that’s about to strike, beating it to the punch, puts it into a Staggered state. That not only progresses your bestiary and unlocks bonuses, but also lets you finish the enemy with a brutal axe execution, or stack additional pistol shots in the queue for incremental damage.
Every creature has its own weak points, and you’ll need to study their patterns and attacks. What seems easy at first gets trickier once you’re facing multiple enemies with different patterns at the same time, forcing you to choose the right move, or combo, under pressure.
Dodges and parries are also worth mentioning. They don’t just mitigate damage. For certain monsters, they’re the only way to knock them down and set up a finisher. The gameplay won me over, and as you push further, it gets harder to walk away from a fight without taking a hit.
Defeated enemies grant experience points, which also scale based on your performance, whether you exploited weaknesses, scored multi-kills with a single strike, and so on.
Those experience points level up the character and raise core stats represented by Offense, Defense, Resistance, Agility, and Luck.
In my opinion, the work Ryan, the solo developer behind Wicked Seed, has done so far is genuinely impressive. The opening presentation, the environments, the monster designs, and even the UI all feel solid, and I’m really into the overall look.
What can I say about Ella? Let’s just say I’m willing to bet you’ll end up spinning the camera around more than once to appreciate her beauty and curves.
That aside, the music and sound effects feel on point for the kind of experience the game is going for. There are a few small areas that could use some polish in the menu system. For example, you can’t compare different armor types you pick up, and once something is equipped, you can’t inspect its detailed stats.
Still, these are minor issues, and the developer might easily refine them even after launch.
Wicked Seed didn’t just convince me, it completely won me over. I’ll admit that at first I probably wouldn’t have bet much on it, assuming it was something rough around the edges and not particularly focused on gameplay detail.
Instead, it’s exactly the opposite: a project with a narrative that’s been genuinely intriguing so far, even though it’s delivered through exploration and scattered notes, and, above all, a combat system with real depth and a character-growth structure that makes it a full-fledged RPG.
The release date isn’t far off: Wicked Seed is coming to PC via Steam on January 23, 2026. Go try the demo yourself and let me know what you think.
