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Reviewed On: PS5
Also Available On: Nintendo Switch, and PC
Price: $24.99 USD
Developer: Plane Toast
Publisher: Dear Villagers
Release Date: September 12th, 2024
Please Note: A review code was provided for this review but does not influence the opinions stated here in any way.
I love indie developers and I play a lot of indie games every year. I also love when games try to be more creative compared to others, as I don’t want to play the same exact game repeatedly. Well, now I got to play a game that is not like any other game that I have played this year, saying this in both good and bad aspects. Caravan SandWitch is from a studio, Plane Toast, where not only is it a small team crafting this title, but also it is their first game… and for that, I absolutely think they have some great elements scattered through the adventure. I like a relaxing game, but when a game is too much of a cozy adventure, the pull has to be strong for me to really want to invest in it. Read on in my review to really see my thoughts on this one.
The story revolves around a character named Sauge trying to solve the mystery of what happened to her sister 6 years ago, after getting a notification from out of the blue. Sauge lives in Space City but comes down to Cigalo in order to investigate. At first, people are apprehensive and don’t want Sauge to go looking, but then slowly those people open up to the idea and begin to help. You help out a character named Rose, and then are given the keys to her van. Throughout the story, a witch tries to stop you from exploring in order to hide certain things. There are a few twists and turns that come up, but nothing that wows you in any specific way. The game is broken up into chapters and each chapter adds a dash more to the story, but the story was pretty minimalistic in all honesty and not that memorable.
In terms of the gameplay, again it is simplistic. It is a relaxing cozy adventure where there is no combat, no death, no damage, etc. Rather there are puzzles and exploration with collectables hiding in the world. To progress the story, you have to find components that are scattered in the different locations of the world in order to unlock new abilities and items to progress through the game. There are a bunch of different locations on the map, with even more than just the bigger spots, although, there is no indication unless you are directly in that vicinity. In the story, you need to complete different tasks such as activating platforms, climbing ladders, solving mostly simplistic puzzles, all while exploring and opening the world by destroying the signal jammers that block the map at first.
On top of the main collectable being component pieces to unlock more of the overall story and abilities, there are also side collectables to get from things like food, stuffed animals, view spots, and more scattered throughout the map. There are also side missions to complete involving many of the residents and individuals trapped in the world, both with time restrictions and ones you complete throughout the whole adventure. Most of these missions are find a bunch of collectables, find specific items, talk through situations, and the like… basically, a lot of fetch quests for the most part unfortunately. When traveling on foot, you can thankfully fast travel back to the van if you are within the same area. I went about 300m and could still travel back to the van, which is nice. Thankfully, another plus of the game is that there really isn’t any load times, or very few of them that I saw besides the initial load into the game.
Performance wise, the game ran pretty smooth overall. I had a few instances of hiccups but nothing was that bad nor did it last for too long when it did. I will say the art and visuals in the game are overall nice, from the detailed environments in the world to the details you can see on some of the characters. You will see the same colors a lot in the game and while that may sound bad, it works well. The world feels lush while at the same time feeling like it has been destroyed… which may or may not play into part of the game. The artistic style as a whole is nice with it looking unique enough from other games but again, I personally wouldn’t consider it memorable nor do I think it is anything to write home about.
Looking back on this game, I can’t remember much from my time in regards to the music and audio… except for the one song that plays once you first leave Space City. During my time in the game, I liked the audio noises in the world and the music that I heard during the occasional radio spot that I found on the map, when the audio worked that is. Again I don’t remember the score outside the game, but that isn’t to say it is bad, its just not outstanding or memorable. The lack of a voice cast for the game also hurts it in my book since there was a lot of words showing up in basic speech bubbles. When games have dialogue for their cast of characters, I feel like it makes the characters much more memorable than those that don’t, which is maybe part of the reason I don’t remember many of them.
In terms of the bugs, glitches, graphical issues, and the like, there were a few instances where the experience was bogged down, or it took me out of the experience. There was a total of one crash for me in the whole game, right at the end of the game… and I did not like that. One of the more annoying bugs that I came across was sometimes when I tried to pick up a component or activate something; both on foot and using the van abilities, the game wouldn’t do the action I asked it to. I would have to either leave and come back in a bit to try again, or try to somehow fiddle around to see if somehow it would fix itself. Another big issue, was the van would get stuck in random spots or in situations that didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but thankfully you can transport to the garage at any time. A third bug that happened a lot for me, was the audio would completely cut out of the game and I could hear nothing… which is not a fun thing to happen, so I would have to reset the whole game from the home screen to fix that. The game had a few other bugs, but these were the bigger ones I came across.
I was seriously interested in this game when I first saw it thinking there was something that I would be wowed about in it. Unfortunately, there is no big shock in the experience, besides there being two different endings to choose from. The pacing of the game was slower, but that is by the design of the game since it wanted you to explore the world that was built. It is very sad to say it is the case for Caravan SandWitch that besides a couple of the characters, a couple of good music moments, and the decent look that the game offers I won’t remember much from my time on Cigalo… and in all honesty, I am not sure how long I will remember the game as a whole. It’s decent for a relaxing adventure, but if you were searching for fun, I personally didn’t find it here; rather I found other emotions that are harder to articulate. Nothing is downright bad in the game; however, nothing is memorable or outright terrific… and that pains me to say from someone who really loves indies.
Review Score: 7/10
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