Captain Wayne: The “Hell Yeah” game

 I was chilling at home over break when a most glorious video crossed my twitter feed (linked below). It was an ad for some new indie game called “Captain Wayne – Vacation Desperation.”

https://x.com/rainingketchup/status/1993335965419815426

The ad was really funny, so much so that once I was back in my dorm room the following week, looked the game up on Steam, and it looked pretty good so I bought it. Upon loading the game up, I recognized it was in the classic Doom engine, which is great since Doom is probably my favorite shooter game of all time. The premise of the game is you play as the pirate Captain Wayne, who recently learned about a treasure called the Orca Stone on Orca Isle. Being a pirate and all, Captain Wayne decides to go out and try to claim the Orca Stone for himself.

I had assumed that the gameplay would be about the same as in Doom, but as it turns out Captain Wayne’s got more sauce than Doomguy ever did. To start, Captain Wayne’s punch attacks can be charged up, leading him to have electric powers that shock the enemy. In addition, he has a stun move that uses his electric powers to make the enemies easier to punch which feels really cool to do but I never really use the bare fists since his other starting weapon is so much cooler: the shotgun arm (named “The Captain's Ol' Reliable” according to the Steam page). That’s right, the captain’s left arm is a robot arm that’s absolutely Berserk. My favorite feature of it is how you can shoot both shotgun shells at once if you right click, for double damage but then you have to reload. Captain Wayne also has a kick move, but I don’t really use that for damage it’s more of an air dash option, which is sick. You also get a few other weapons throughout the game, but I won’t spoil those so that you, yes you, can discover them for yourself.

A more mechanical change I liked was the tweak to how health and armor work. Normally in Doom your healing items and armor can only get you to 100%, with bonuses and blue armor getting you above 100% to a maximum of 200%. In Captain Wayne – Vacation Desperation any items can take you above 100%, but you slowly lose it over time, taking you back down to 100%. This, combined with the air dash kick makes it clear that Captain Wayne is a bit of a speed game, which is really awesome sauce. The level design also fits the bill here, as what I played (most of the game, but I’m not finished yet) seemed pretty straightforward in the level design, which I feel would make it easier to get the speed down for (not me though I’m nowhere near good enough for that).

A cool feature this game has are the short little cutscenes in between levels, which are used exactly how you think a cutscene would be used: to tell the story. A small gripe I had was that if I touched the volume buttons on my laptop it would skip the cutscene, so I often had to lean close to my computer to hear them, since they’re quieter than the gameplay. I really liked the artstyle of the cutscenes, and they overall reminded me of One Piece, though that may just be because they are cartoon pirates. Captain Wayne himself is 100% One Piece coded though and I will die on this hill.

Earlier I said the levels were pretty straightforward for the most part, but let me be clear that THIS IS NOT A BAD THING THEY ARE VERY FUN!!! I really like the look of each level, and the music for them slaps so hard. I also found them all fun to play, and I really liked the one where you start in the bathroom looking in the mirror (you’ll know it when you get to it). The boss fight I played was very fun too. Reminded me of Revolver Ocelot in a way. I think my ramble on Captain Wayne is done now so thank you for reading and I hope you check it out!