Caravan SandWitch

Gaming can be stressful, especially for those looking for the ultimate challenge in virtual excellence. We’ve all rage quit, obsessed over an achievement, or tried to perfect the ultimate no-hit boss rush before. And I ask, why can’t a video game be chill? And over the last few years, chill video games have become a major thing, where your efforts are honestly measurable, and what you get back is more of a sense of wholesome accomplishment or upgrade in intellectual understanding for a theme or feeling.

Caravan SandWitch is a “Hopeful Post Apocolypse” which takes you on a mysterious journey to find your long-lost sister with the help of your cool, retro camper van. But is this Lo-Fi explorer deemed for cult classic status? I certainly think so.

What is Caravan SandWitch (not a dust snack!)


Caravan SandWitch is a Sci-Fi, Lo-Fi, chilled mystery adventure, where you embark on a quest as Sauge to find their long-lost sister. Returning to the home planet of Cigalo, which is now somewhat an unstable ticking, time-bomb, Sauge is determined to find her long-lost sister, after receiving a faint but recognisable transmission. Venturing home, Sauge finds her home-grown community, practically a speckle of life within a planet of sands and storms, and begins to reunite with her old friends, and family, and head off to healing what is broken.

Equipped with a groovy and well-fitted camper van, it’s time to set forth and explore the lands to find your missing sister. There’s plenty of exploration, discovery, treasure hunting, climbing, and puzzle solving as you navigate an unsafe environment to uncover the truth about your sister, and the events that took place 40 years ago.

And by saying the planet is dangerous, it isn’t, as death, injury, lapse of time, and missing out on critical mission objectives are not present here.

In the developer's own words: Life is simple: no combat, no death, no timer, just you, your van, and the world.

And yeah, Caravan SandWitch sticks to this principle to bring us a wholesome, easy-going game with compelling gameplay components and narrative. You’ll be helping those in need, but never have to make tough, devastating choices, that will shape your very being and other people. Nor will you fall to a grizzly, gruesome death by taking a misstep on top of a very tall tower. Or be left in the middle of nowhere when you run out of fuel.

It's all about you, the open plains, and that wonderous sense of self-discovery and accomplishment. Nothing like Dead Rising’s critical and cruel timer mechanic (I love Dead Rising by the way), and instead a game you can unwind with, and I’m pretty thankful for that.


I’m not crying, it’s sand in my eyes


I think we can all get behind a story of love, loss, and finding family against the harshest conditions, but within an ultra-chill game, making it compelling might sound like a tricky task.

While mechanically the game does not push any urgency towards the narrative, unlike a game such as Dead Rising (I’ll stop mentioning DR I promise), the story itself is still incredibly engaging and with each step on the planet’s surface, there’s a lot of fascinating stuff to take in.

Cigalo was once a wholesome green planet filled with life and wonder, only to be turned into a tragic, desertic wasteland due to the dangerous curiosity of human beings. Now Cigalo is in ruins, or even worse than that. But there is hope as a handful of people remain in a makeshift community who decided not to abandon their home world, to take up a lesser life, ill of freedom on a giant space station. They are happy but have to fend for themselves quite often, and the days of the end are drawing nearer unless something drastic is done.

Sauge went off to find work, prosperity and a new lease of life that didn’t involve droughts and endless sand. She did come back to find her long-lost sister after receiving a faint distress call. And now it’s time to put together the pieces of her old life, and old home.

I generally loved everything narratively this game had to offer, and it kept me invested until the end. It’s a simple tale for sure, and without the lack of urgency, it could have failed so easily. But the range of varied characters, the depth of world-building, the enthralling unravelling of the world’s past, the mystery of the illusive SandWitch, and seeing the wholesome concept of people working together to get on with their day-to-day lives warmed my heart.

I loved the quirky, and hopeful nature of the townspeople, the unravelling of their struggles, and the bonds they had with each and the planet all felt capable and endearing. I particularly loved the frogs who wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the planet and its history, making mind-blowing discoveries of giant robots and what they did, and their deeper beliefs in creationism. It’s all amazing, fun stuff to learn and see in the game.

And while there are no major conflicts, aside from the SandWitch appearing and telling you not to go any further, but you do and nothing bad happens, there is still a great sense of adventure, and mystery here, and enough to keep you hooked. Learning of the event that caused the planet to turn to sand, and finding all the remnants of humanity that long abandoned was neat, and sad (as humans would do that to Earth). But seeing the bond between the community, Sauge and the world was incredibly uplifting.

And even if I found certain beats a little predictable, that didn’t impact how thoroughly I enjoyed the world, history, and characters.


Like Mad Max, without the Mad, the Max, and instead you with a camper van


So, you’re most likely thinking without the fear of death, brutal conflict, or stress of figuring stuff out without time restrictions. What is there to do?

You drive, you explore, you help people with chores and go and find your sister. It’s all super nice and chilled, and I adore it.

The main thing Sauge has in her arsenal is her van, and the tools stuck on top of it, from a beacon/scanner, hacker device, and wench to her trusty pulley system which gets her across various, well-placed wires and ropes between points A of interest, and point B of interest. The main thing here is to go forth, explore, and roam the lands looking for components to upgrade and build new tools, but also taking on the odd job to help her old community.

You drive, stop by an old ruin, go and explore, collect some bits, and do the odd task of collecting old sandwiches, and tadpoles, and aligning satellite relays for an honest day’s work. Sauge can do some nifty climbing, and with advanced gear make massive leaps she couldn’t simply jump across, access hard-to-reach places, and in return gain more components and get one step closer to her sister.

There's no combat, shooting, or fatalities here, and without a day/night system, dynamic environment hazards or more, much of what you see is what you get. And I get this might turn some people away but it really shouldn’t.

I do get it, as even in games like Mario 64 he can drown horrifically, and while I would have liked a Day/Night system, and dynamic weather, I can’t deny the sense of ease, yet accomplishment I got from Caravan SandWitch. It’s a nice game, and one that doesn’t demand a lot, but a lot to reward you with when you finally click with it. You can drive around as much as you want, leap over ramps, make pit stops and take in the ocean views, go pillage a ruin, find a robot friend, and just take in the awe. It’s super nice to play a game that’s like “Hey dude, go at your own pace and don’t worry about death”.

I like that! And as I grow older, I learn to like that even more day by day.

I will acknowledge (in a subject sense) that this might have been a lot better with randomly generated world events, and a dynamic weather system. It doesn’t need to include any danger, but seeing a sunset on this planet, or rainfall, or shooting stars out of the blue would have just elevated that mood, and connection with the world. It would have also been nice to do other things like take the van out and make a camp in the middle of nowhere or do some other fun bits.

I also will state that puzzles are simple for the most part. The challenge and lateral fun come more so from the platforming and climbing, which is a lot of fun. But some more engaging lateral elements would have helped me personally (As I love puzzles), but get that again, the game is ultra-chill. And it accomplishes that very much.

While it is mechanically basic, I love how relaxed it is, and how I can wholeheartedly venture off and find myself lost in an awesome world, and just dig up neat stuff. But there also is a good sense of progression, feeling kind of Metrovania-like. And an enriching level of discovery as I learn more about the world and get sucked into the heart of the mystery.

I get it if people say there could be more here, and that’s fair. But it’s also not the point. The point of Caravan SandWitch is to mellow you and get you in a state where you’re brain unwinds but you still doing cognitive, interesting and fun stuff so it doesn’t go in auto-pilot mode (I’ve played many games like that, and Caravan SandWitch is not one of them for sure).


Overall?


What I got from Caravan SandWitch was a nice calm, lo-fi-style relaxation, which didn’t shut off my brain. Having to work in QA and test games, and apps and stare endlessly at the screen for quite a chunk of my day does get me tense and tired. Where I might be in the mood for something like Elden Ring, or something far less intense. And Caravan SandWitch just felt like the perfect answer to a long day of work.

Caravan SandWitch is such a super calm, thoroughly sweet adventure game that I wanted it to last longer, even after 8 hours. But I could have gone for more, yet what I played was tightly woven, offered a decent amount of enjoyable exploration and discovery, provided a touching story and compelling world-building, and above all, just brought about a pleasant, wholesome venture that still got me to act, react, and do stuff, without making it feel like a chore (even when I was doing chores).

Caravan SandWitch might fly under a lot of people’s radars, and it shouldn’t. Especially if you’re looking for a nice, cosy, heart-warming game to cleanse your palate of doom, and gloom. My advice, get into that camper van, ride off into the dusty planes, and let it all go with this beautiful video game.


++ Beautiful, relaxing, and cosy adventure gameplay
+ Lovely presentation, charming characters, and world-building
+ Compelling and moving narrative
+ Just super nice and lo-fi

- Maybe, could have included a couple more lo-fi gameplay mechanics
- Lateral elements are quite simple (but still fun, due to deep exploration)


A review copy of Caravan SandWitch was kindly provided by the publisher.