The bane of my childhood becomes a source of childlike wonder.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize that, when it comes to stories, some of the best ones ever told are the small personal ones: The conversations in coffee shops, the happenings of a small town, the drama of family struggles. Video games have, for most of the medium’s existence, been based around epic and over-the-top plots of saving the world/galaxy/universe/existence.
Sure, that doesn’t mean that the personal is completely abandoned (so many great RPGs have some form of relationship drama), but it wasn’t until very recently that the medium (at least in the Western world) began producing low-stakes stories based around simple tasks and jobs. Everything from work simulators to interactive visual novels and farming games have become major hits in the industry, and many of them sell a fantasy of therapy through repetitive tasks.
I love those kinds of games, of course, and I will die on that hill…but just like any kind of genre, there are always tropes underlying it that can be explored and deconstructed.
Wanderstop is exactly that game.
What Is It?
Honestly, a real upgrade compared to modern dishwashers.
Wanderstop is a plot-driven cozy gardening game developed by newcomer Ivy Road, itself made up of legendary indie developers from Gone Home, Minecraft, and The Stanley Parable. Taking place entirely within an ever-changing forest clearing, it tells the story of Alta. Alta is a fighter by trade, and by her account an incredibly successful one with an undefeated streak… until she’s defeated. Then defeated again. And again. Eventually, driven by both her own inner demons and a desire to get better, she flees into the forest to locate a legendary fighting master to train her in hopes that she can improve.
But as she runs through the forest, she finds herself growing heavy. Her trusty sword begins to drag across the ground, eventually getting to the point where she cannot lift it off the ground. Finally, she collapses into a heap on to the forest’s ground. When she comes to, she finds herself on a park bench sitting next to an enormous man named Boro. This odd-looking gentle giant advises her to try a change in direction: take a break from fighting and training, and help him out as his whimsical tea shop.
This is pretty much the bulk of the game: running the tea shop. There’s gardening, housekeeping, collecting and planting seeds for ingredients, and waiting on the occasional guests (all of whom are highly unusual characters themselves). And of course, there’s making tea, which in this case involves the use of the tea shop’s Dr. Seuss-ian machines (including the tea maker itself, but we’ll get to that). And if you ever get stuck, don’t worry: your gardening manual and your handy-dandy Book ff Answers will give you the info you need.
Of course, there’s also the guests, and they are certainly a unique bunch: a delusional wannabe knight in stolen armor slowly being taken over by a curse, a crotchety old lady trying to put you out of business with her traveling stand, a trio of lookalike corporate businessman robotically asking for coffee, and so much more.
Why Should I Care?
Believe it or not, it’s a lot simpler than it looks.
The actual mechanics of the game are fairly simple to ascertain, if at times incredibly whimsical: In order to get tea leaves for the tea, Alta must search the outskirts of the Clearing for tea leaf bushes that randomly pop up (don’t worry, there’s always plenty to go around), then when her basket is full she returns to the tea shop where she unloads the leaves onto a drying mechanism. This in turn creates Tea Balls, which are what is used to make the tea itself. Outside of this, there are the seeds and the crops they produce: gardening in this game essentially works on a hexagonal grid, wherein one seed equals one plant. Planting three of the same seed in a row creates a plant egg (yes, you read correctly) that when watered will produce a ‘small hybrid’, from which more seeds can be taken. However, if you plant three seeds in a triangle, and then plant a fourth in the center (different seeds get different results), you will get a ‘large hybrid’ from which various fruits can be procured.
Then of course, there’s the tea machine itself: this oddball contraption essentially breaks down the tea making process into five steps: pour water from the top, use a bellows to heat it to boiling, pipe the water to the pitcher, throw in tea balls and ingredients into the pitcher, then pipe the water from the pitcher to the last container. From there, one need only place a tea cup underneath the spigot, pull the rope and tea is served. Obviously, you’ll be serving this tea to the occasional guest, and all of them will have specific orders (though there’s no real penalty for getting it wrong, so trial and error is more than okay).
Of course, there’s more to it. You’ll have to remember to clean the cups (via a hybrid washing machine/model train set), and also keep the Clearing neat and tidy. You’ll go about sweeping up leaf piles (where you’ll often find hidden trinkets), using a pair of shears to cull weeds (and they can sprout fast), and tend to the puffins (yes, they’re penguins who live in the area). Said puffins will occasionally pick up random things and follow you around, either stuff you may have dropped or random parcels that need to be mailed (which in turn will give you trinkets).
If all of this sounds a little overwhelming, don’t worry: there is no timetable to any of this. Everything from gardening to serving guests happens at your own personal pace. There is no need to rush, and in fact the game encourages you to take it slow and do whatever it is you want. Guests are not impatient and will wait forever (time and space don’t really work the same way at Wanderstop).
What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?
Boro cares. He cares a lot.
If there’s one thing about this game that I love, it’s that the stakes are so low that you don’t have to worry about losing. There is no way to lose. The entire point of the game is to slow down, stop worrying about ‘being on task’ and simply enjoy the world around you. As Boro himself will tell you: sometimes, there just isn’t anything to do, so enjoy the downtime. The game’s story only moves at the pace you yourself want it to, and as far as Alta is concerned, that’s something she has a hard time wrapping her head around. As the game goes on, you start to realize that Alta has some serious demons to overcome, some of them self-inflicted, others from her environment. Alta isn’t a very likable person to start out with: she’s mean, snippy, judgemental, and in general not a nice person. But she is human, and it’s ultimately her essential humanity that Boro and Wanderstop draws out of her.
Honestly, if I have but one quibble, it’s with the game’s randomly generated mechanics: plants, mushrooms and weeds all grow out in the clearing at random intervals, and most of the time work fine… unless they accidentally grow where a tree or rock is placed, in which case they rather crudely tear through the textures of the object in question.
But other than that? No complaints here. Honestly, this is probably one of the best (if not the best) cozy games I’ve encountered, but unlike a lot of other games of this genre, the coziness is not just surface level. You can genuinely relax with this game, and honestly it’s a little depressing after it’s over.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize that, when it comes to stories, some of the best ones ever told are the small personal ones: The conversations in coffee shops, the happenings of a small town, the drama of…
The bane of my childhood becomes a source of childlike wonder.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize that, when it comes to stories, some of the best ones ever told are the small personal ones: The conversations in coffee shops, the happenings of a small town, the drama of family struggles. Video games have, for most of the medium’s existence, been based around epic and over-the-top plots of saving the world/galaxy/universe/existence.
Sure, that doesn’t mean that the personal is completely abandoned (so many great RPGs have some form of relationship drama), but it wasn’t until very recently that the medium (at least in the Western world) began producing low-stakes stories based around simple tasks and jobs. Everything from work simulators to interactive visual novels and farming games have become major hits in the industry, and many of them sell a fantasy of therapy through repetitive tasks.
I love those kinds of games, of course, and I will die on that hill…but just like any kind of genre, there are always tropes underlying it that can be explored and deconstructed.
Wanderstop is exactly that game.
What Is It?
Honestly, a real upgrade compared to modern dishwashers.
Wanderstop is a plot-driven cozy gardening game developed by newcomer Ivy Road, itself made up of legendary indie developers from Gone Home, Minecraft, and The Stanley Parable. Taking place entirely within an ever-changing forest clearing, it tells the story of Alta. Alta is a fighter by trade, and by her account an incredibly successful one with an undefeated streak… until she’s defeated. Then defeated again. And again. Eventually, driven by both her own inner demons and a desire to get better, she flees into the forest to locate a legendary fighting master to train her in hopes that she can improve.
But as she runs through the forest, she finds herself growing heavy. Her trusty sword begins to drag across the ground, eventually getting to the point where she cannot lift it off the ground. Finally, she collapses into a heap on to the forest’s ground. When she comes to, she finds herself on a park bench sitting next to an enormous man named Boro. This odd-looking gentle giant advises her to try a change in direction: take a break from fighting and training, and help him out as his whimsical tea shop.
This is pretty much the bulk of the game: running the tea shop. There’s gardening, housekeeping, collecting and planting seeds for ingredients, and waiting on the occasional guests (all of whom are highly unusual characters themselves). And of course, there’s making tea, which in this case involves the use of the tea shop’s Dr. Seuss-ian machines (including the tea maker itself, but we’ll get to that). And if you ever get stuck, don’t worry: your gardening manual and your handy-dandy Book ff Answers will give you the info you need.
Of course, there’s also the guests, and they are certainly a unique bunch: a delusional wannabe knight in stolen armor slowly being taken over by a curse, a crotchety old lady trying to put you out of business with her traveling stand, a trio of lookalike corporate businessman robotically asking for coffee, and so much more.
Why Should I Care?
Believe it or not, it’s a lot simpler than it looks.
The actual mechanics of the game are fairly simple to ascertain, if at times incredibly whimsical: In order to get tea leaves for the tea, Alta must search the outskirts of the Clearing for tea leaf bushes that randomly pop up (don’t worry, there’s always plenty to go around), then when her basket is full she returns to the tea shop where she unloads the leaves onto a drying mechanism. This in turn creates Tea Balls, which are what is used to make the tea itself. Outside of this, there are the seeds and the crops they produce: gardening in this game essentially works on a hexagonal grid, wherein one seed equals one plant. Planting three of the same seed in a row creates a plant egg (yes, you read correctly) that when watered will produce a ‘small hybrid’, from which more seeds can be taken. However, if you plant three seeds in a triangle, and then plant a fourth in the center (different seeds get different results), you will get a ‘large hybrid’ from which various fruits can be procured.
Then of course, there’s the tea machine itself: this oddball contraption essentially breaks down the tea making process into five steps: pour water from the top, use a bellows to heat it to boiling, pipe the water to the pitcher, throw in tea balls and ingredients into the pitcher, then pipe the water from the pitcher to the last container. From there, one need only place a tea cup underneath the spigot, pull the rope and tea is served. Obviously, you’ll be serving this tea to the occasional guest, and all of them will have specific orders (though there’s no real penalty for getting it wrong, so trial and error is more than okay).
Of course, there’s more to it. You’ll have to remember to clean the cups (via a hybrid washing machine/model train set), and also keep the Clearing neat and tidy. You’ll go about sweeping up leaf piles (where you’ll often find hidden trinkets), using a pair of shears to cull weeds (and they can sprout fast), and tend to the puffins (yes, they’re penguins who live in the area). Said puffins will occasionally pick up random things and follow you around, either stuff you may have dropped or random parcels that need to be mailed (which in turn will give you trinkets).
If all of this sounds a little overwhelming, don’t worry: there is no timetable to any of this. Everything from gardening to serving guests happens at your own personal pace. There is no need to rush, and in fact the game encourages you to take it slow and do whatever it is you want. Guests are not impatient and will wait forever (time and space don’t really work the same way at Wanderstop).
What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?
Boro cares. He cares a lot.
If there’s one thing about this game that I love, it’s that the stakes are so low that you don’t have to worry about losing. There is no way to lose. The entire point of the game is to slow down, stop worrying about ‘being on task’ and simply enjoy the world around you. As Boro himself will tell you: sometimes, there just isn’t anything to do, so enjoy the downtime. The game’s story only moves at the pace you yourself want it to, and as far as Alta is concerned, that’s something she has a hard time wrapping her head around. As the game goes on, you start to realize that Alta has some serious demons to overcome, some of them self-inflicted, others from her environment. Alta isn’t a very likable person to start out with: she’s mean, snippy, judgemental, and in general not a nice person. But she is human, and it’s ultimately her essential humanity that Boro and Wanderstop draws out of her.
Honestly, if I have but one quibble, it’s with the game’s randomly generated mechanics: plants, mushrooms and weeds all grow out in the clearing at random intervals, and most of the time work fine… unless they accidentally grow where a tree or rock is placed, in which case they rather crudely tear through the textures of the object in question.
But other than that? No complaints here. Honestly, this is probably one of the best (if not the best) cozy games I’ve encountered, but unlike a lot of other games of this genre, the coziness is not just surface level. You can genuinely relax with this game, and honestly it’s a little depressing after it’s over.
by Brandon Perkins
