A low pressure open world adventure game where you drive around in your cute lil van to discover what is out there and figure out what happened to your sister.
I found this game on Humble Choice, and the description hooked me pretty good. The game really is cozy despite the harsh desert, swirling lightning storm, and mysterious figure that follows you around, and there is no time pressure. There is a decent number of sidequests that you can miss by advancing the story too fast, but the story advances on your pace not it’s own. There will even be specific plot beats where the game tells you “hey, uh, if you do this now, you’re gonna miss out on these people’s sidequests, so you should go clear those up first.”
Enough of that, what is this game like.
Sauge, the player character who’s name I can’t pronunce, touches down on the planet from the space station bus, and then you’ll have to make your way to Estello Village to meet the locals and get your footing, and your van. There is a small community here of people who take care of eachother, and clearly something must have happened since the whole damn world is a desert and an achievement portrays the entire ocean as polluted, and again, what’s with that lightning storm?
But of course, why are you here? Well, your sister who went missing 6 years ago just sent out a distress signal from the planet, and you want to find it as soon as possible to save her! But it’s not just gonna be a matter of following the signals, you’ve gotta clear the way of signal jammers to pinpoint the signal location, and then get there, and that’s gonna take upgrading your van with new tools and equipment to aid exploration.
Wait a moment, is this a metroidvania?
Yes, kinda, but no, but yes in the softest way imaginable. It’s still a linear story, each of the upgrades you get is a new chapter in the story, and unlocks new areas, which allows the developers to hide certain things you’ll need behind having certain upgrades and require certain upgrades to clear the interferance from certain regions of the map. The part that turns this back from metroidvania to a story game is how you unlock these upgrades. Instead of stumbling into them in the world, you collect scrap parts to construct them at the village. Scrap comes in 4 tiers: green, red, gold, and purple, and you’ll have to find enough to make the next upgrade. Each upgrade unlocks more places to search for them though. It would become a tedious gameplay loop if not for two factors: The game from start to 100% takes only about 8 hours (finishing the story would probably take 4-6 if you didn’t bother with sidequests); and if you do the sidequests, there is a good chance you’ll have enough scrap for the next tool before you finish all the sidequests for a given day.
There are some sidequests that span multiple days, usually requiring you to explore and find stuff until you have enough stuff found to complete it. These don’t have to be done immediately and won’t go away until you reach the point of no return. (The game will tell you when this is, don’t worry.) The whole game is chill. There are points of interest, but instead of pointing to collectables or events, they instead direct you towards little radios that let you soak in the music of the area, and cushions to sit on and just see the landscape around you in a really wide camera shot. The game really does exist just as much in relaxation and contemplation as it does in mystery and intrigue.
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1582650 £21.99
Humble Bundle: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/caravan-sandwitch £21.99
Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Caravan-SandWitch-2638958.html £22.49
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