The Indie Informer

The recent news of Eathblade’s cancelation brought another anticipated indie game to my mind. A game that is, in part, a response to the pressures of creating a follow-up title in the wake of a previous release’s unbelievable popularity. One that also touched me personally, as I was playing it over the winter break — a time I probably should have been relaxing rather than working.

Wanderstop examines what we do to ourselves when we push too hard for too long — when the pressure collapses down on us. It’s a gentle probe and a harsh warning. Both feel authentic and empathetic, perhaps because the game’s director Davey Wreden has been there with us before. The Stanley Parable creator has made no secret of his struggles with burnout, and that they directly influenced the themes in his upcoming project. Despite its cozy facade, don’t go in unprepared for Wanderstop’s intensity.

I stare at the screen for a moment, unbalanced. Wanderstop — a game I expected to kick off with a warm cup of tea — instead thrust me into a brutal, beautiful, and darker narrative world than I’d anticipated. In mere moments, the game peeled back the layers of a strong, unbeatable warrior, Alta, jolting her vulnerable nerves. Burnout, overworking, obsession with perfection, and throwing mental health to the wayside, all of these flash wildly across the screen, across the heroine’s face. She thinks it’s all been worth it. Until she fails.

My thoughts were pounding in the aftermath. The art style transformed from the soft stylistic signature of a cozy game to slashes of hand-drawn sketches and back again. The dialogue punched me in the gut. Like the main character, I needed a second to catch my breath. She decides to take a journey to her old mentor to regain her skills, and I’m along for the ride.

She never makes it through the woods. Walking the tree-lined path, the physical and mental weight of my sword becomes too much. It falls from my hand. Soon, I can’t even support my own body and drop to the beaten earth as my legs fail. Enter Boro.

A hulking figure of a man, Boro seems like he should be more familiar with combat than tea. He sits next to me gently as I wake, convincing me to recover in his shop rather than push on. I finally gained control of the character and my first act, instead of using my limited demo time wisely to further the main quest, was to rush over to a gaggle of penguin-like creatures I’d spied across the yard. It seemed like a fitting act considering the game’s themes.

Pluffins, as the creatures turned out to be, are adorable and offer me the chance to pet and carry them around. From this moment on, you have to imagine everything I’m doing in the demo is done with a Pluffin either in my arms or very nearby.

Making tea is a serious and multi-stepped pursuit that starts with farming. Though the idea is common in games of this genre, Wanderstop’s approach is novel. My seeds thrive or transform depending on what pattern I place them in, owing to a touch of magic. I spent a lot of time trying out different arrangements and combinations just to see what would happen — something Davey Wreden was happy to watch me do after quickly check-in, making sure I wasn’t just confused.

I enjoyed my time in the garden a little too long, which meant the deeper intricacies of tea making — like figuring out how the whimsical rollercoaster delivery system worked or testing out what the stories-tall glass cauldron did — was lost to me. But it won’t be long until I can dive deeper since Wanderstop is set to release in March, and I can’t wait.