Caravan SandWitch prides itself on being a “narrative-driven exploration adventure,” but what happens when the world I’m eager to explore gets in the way of the narrative and overall pacing?
Plane Toast has received critical acclaim for its game, which promises no conflict and no failure states, just navigating a post-exploitation world while helping nomads and others abandoned by the capitalist machine. It’s an interesting sci-fi setting, but it doesn’t seem to make any sense or cog due to the game’s design level limitations and frustrating lack of focus.
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It always sucks to put a lot of passion and effort into a well-intentioned indie game only to end up disappointed, but it’s a feeling that (at least for me) happens more often than I’d like. This time around, I dug Caravan SandWitch’s objectives, but I didn’t think it quite came together as a cohesive trip.
The premise is simple: Soji ends up on the planet Sigalo after living in outer space for some time. Why did she leave? Why is she back now? If this were a narrative-driven game with strong initial appeal, these questions might drive the narrative for hours, but they’re answered within the first few minutes. Sigalo was once a prosperous world “thanks to” colonization efforts, but now it has been half-eaten by desert and storms, and the local alien frogmen try to live with the nomads and workers who stayed there You can call Sigalo home.
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Now, Sorg and her friends (most of whom appear simultaneously in the first half hour or so) are trying to figure out what happened to her missing sister by tracking mysterious transmissions. It’s the kind of thin premise that other indie studios would turn into a tighter, more punchy ride lasting up to five hours. In Caravan SandWitch, however, you’re tasked with driving a van around to help small communities while compulsorily collecting electronic parts. In fact, these parts are the key to it all, as the obstacle in each chapter is simply finding the amount of junk needed to piece together the van upgrades.
It’s a weird way the game is structured, with exploration and puzzles being reduced to a quick look/wander through some ruins and pressing a button as soon as you see them. It feels uncomfortable in its own skin. Each passing chapter reminds us of the urgency of finding Soji’s sister, but the backbone of the entire game is actually spending some time interacting with people and helping them with household chores. This reminds me of the worst part of Fallout 4, which is how the main story immediately crashes into the actual video game (your son is kidnapped and there are a thousand ways to distract you) .
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I keep reading rave reviews of the game’s world and exploration, but the tools and movement options I’m given are too basic. Trying to complete a Metroidvania-like loop with a truckload of gadgets, but you can access almost the entire surface map from the start (limited underground) and surprise yourself with a particularly striking tech base that was abandoned . You can’t open that door yet, that’s all.
In Chapter 4, things come to an end. real Grinding and twisting (even fast travel is a hassle), it’s clear that Plane Toast wants to both tell a melancholic, character-driven story and its own take on a collect-a-thon open world, but can’t decipher how to blend both. Longing for a harmonious world. Perhaps a little more depth to the driving and platforming mechanics would have done the trick, but the final version of Caravan SandWitch feels too scattered to make its narrative hit and too focused on accessibility to really make any of its gameplay elements stand out. Likewise, the overall design of the world map is constrained, resulting in a vast but ultimately small land that’s as familiar to you as the back of your hand by the third hour, resulting in plenty of backtracking frustration.
On the more positive side, Caravan SandWitch is very beautiful and artistically consistent. It controls well enough, too, although the van itself gets stuck easily enough when you stray a few meters off the beaten path, so much so that you’ll want to tap the screen the fourth time you’re forced to spawn in Neffler’s garage. I would say, it’s not very relaxing. The music and sound design add a lot to the French Provence-style setting and were the only thing that kept me sane as I was told to drive across the entire map again just to complete one small mission. Granted, it never lasts longer than three or four minutes (unless I’m distracted), but the promise of adventure quickly turns into mundane, three times worse than what some would call Ubisoft’s open world.
If anything, the positive response proves there’s untapped market potential for creating charming and colorful worlds that don’t bombard players with violence and progression systems. The fact that Sigallo isn’t portrayed as a depressing post-apocalyptic wasteland is a victory in itself. If you asked me to drive up and down the same dunes for eight hours while reading speech bubbles and chat transcripts, I’d just wish there was more to Caravan SandWitch than just enjoying the alien Mediterranean scenery and picking up items . As I near the end, I can only hope that there is true sadness or joy at the end of this dusty road.
