| Key Takeaways |
|---|
| 1. Sci-fi exploration with no combat. |
| 2. Cozy vibes in a slow apocalypse. |
| 3. A lack of friction might keep you from getting hooked. |
Video games are built on violence.
I’m not saying that like a worried congressman in the mid-90s. I don’t think that video games necessarily beget violence, but it’s undeniable that inflicting digital harm is a core tenant of an absurd percentage of the medium. Even in ostensibly peaceful games like Stardew Valley, you can blow off some steam by bashing in monsters’ heads.
With that in mind, I was intrigued by Caravan SandWitch proudly proclaiming itself an open-world, exploration-based game with no combat. It took a few tries to really get into it, but eventually, I found my way through the game's enemy-free wastelands and came out the other side with a weird sense of self-reflection.
Returning Home
Caravan SandWitch launched back in September and has been fluctuating between Very Positive and Overwhelmingly Positive reviews on Steam since then. The game drops you into a distant future, where you play as a character returning to the mostly abandoned planet they grew up on after running away to space when their sister disappeared six years ago.
At home, you find all the people you grew up with still living their quiet lives in the shadow of a massive storm that rages in the distance. This is a narrative game, so you spend a lot of time having quiet conversations with NPCs that reveal that the storm started decades ago; that its appearance caused the all-encompassing “Conglomerate” to pull out of the planet; and how the citizens have tried to carve out their own lives since losing that support.
Fortunately for you, the player, all of these independent and resourceful NPCs need help with basic tasks. Shortly after you land you are entrusted with a bright yellow van that seems to be the only functional vehicle on the planet, and with it you are sent out on fetch-quest after fetch-quest to help your friends, learn more about the world, and search for the answer to a mystery from your past.
Driving and Climbing
Like any open-world game, Caravan SandWitch is full of quests that make you travel back and forth across a map. Your yellow van is your constant companion in this game, as you traverse the coast around your home village, a nearby forest, and a vast desert.
Now, even though it boasts an open world, this is a small game. The biomes are small, the whole map is small, and the trips you make around the landscape are short. Even so, the driving itself is a bit dull.
Your van gets a few upgrades through the course of the game, but they are all utility-based abilities that open up new paths for you, rather than traversal-based. The way the van drives at the start is the way it drives at the end, and the way it drives at the start is sort of just fine. It doesn’t feel bad to control, but it’s just sort of uninteresting.
You can go backward, forward, or forward at a bit faster with an unlimited boost, and that’s it. The van doesn’t ever flip or get stuck, it doesn’t get a jump like the Mako, and it doesn’t drift like it’s fresh off the streets of Tokyo. It just goes.
Once you get to a destination, you hop out of your van to adventure on foot like a weaponless Blaster Master. Sometimes you’re climbing natural cliff faces, but mostly you are climbing abandoned industrial structures. The climbing pathways are fairly linear, usually guiding you up a structure to flip a switch that opens a door you passed on your way up, and so forth. You could call these “puzzles”, but they are so straightforward that using that term seems like overkill.
Really, what I found on both sides of the gameplay was that it was pleasant but almost entirely devoid of friction.
On Friction
… and that brings me to the lack of combat.
It’s hard to fail in this game. If you decide you want to beat it, you will. There are times when the experience was frustrating because I struggled to figure out exactly where a particular mission wanted me to go or because I had to search for scraps to have enough currency to progress a plot point, but the game never really challenges you.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but I found my mind wandering while playing the game. There was nothing antagonist to keep me engaged, and so I kept drifting away from the experience. It’s not that I didn’t like what was there… in fact, I really love the whole vibe and aesthetic of the world, and I’m listening to its mostly ambient, super vibey soundtrack as I write this!
But with driving that didn’t challenge me and climbing that didn’t challenge me and puzzle solving that didn’t challenge me… I was hungry for some weird little goblins I could bonk with a wrench to have something that felt like it was pushing back against me!
Final Thoughts
Caravan SandWitch reminds me a lot of Wavetale. It’s a narrative-focused story about a small group of people on a small world doing their best to survive. The difference is that Wavetale’s combat was just enough of a gameplay hook that it kept me focused in on that experience in a way that Caravan SandWitch struggled with.
I adore the world and storytelling in this game, and the gameplay that is here does what it sets out to do just fine. It is a game that does not need combat to tell its story, but without that friction, folks like me who have grown up as digital death dealers might struggle to see the story through.
But that’s something I need to fix in myself, not something the developers need to fix in the game.
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 Pacifist Stars
| Quick View | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Caravan SandWitch |
| Release Date: | September 12, 2024 |
| Price: | $24.99 |
| ESRB Rating: | Everyone 10+ |
| Number of Players: | 1 |
| Platforms: | Steam, Switch, PlayStation |
| Publisher/Developer: | Plane Toast and Dear Villagers |
| How Long to Beat: | Less than 10 hours |
| Recommended for fans of: | Van life, Exploration, Sad Sci-Fi |
[…] So what broke the cycle for me? A game that shifts into an entirely new occupational field like alchemy? Maybe one that properly commits itself to a pastoral life of non-violence? […]