Having played the short demo for Caravan SandWitch in a Steam NextFest event I was immediately curious to see how the open world exploration mixed with puzzle solving would evolve and expand into a full game. Sadly, it didn’t feel like it has grown much at all. That’s not to say it’s not still a very nice game with visuals reminiscent of a Jean Giraud (Mœbius) painting, though not leaning as heavily into that style as the not hugely dissimilar Sable. Caravan SandWitch just failed to have a hook to keep me interested after a few hours of running across the enclosed world between a village, forest and desert all sandwiched in a neat little road network that you’ll come to realise very quickly is utterly essential to not being frustrated with what you’ll be doing for the majority of your time in the game: driving.
The bright yellow camper/caravan/ATV was definitely a strong lure. Just looking at the almost scuba-esque vehicle with its huge nobly tyres and raised suspension with luggage and a spare wheel strapped to the outside really makes me want to go on a proper road trip across a foreign land and soak it all in. It’s just a shame that your time spent behind the wheel in Caravan SandWitch will likely be met with endless frustrations from the smallest of lumps off the beaten path bringing you to a screeching halt or the camera jumping around as it tries to react to said bumps in the road. Driving is entirely serviceable and works and that’s fine, but it’s a far cry from feeling as kinetic and reactive as looking at your van and the simplistic terrain would have you think. This is only made more of a shame as the van is your best friend and where you’ll likely spend most of your playtime as all other mechanics are delivered by way of upgrades to the van. Each requiring progressively more and rarer collectable components that have been scattered throughout the world and are also currency for completing tasks for the inhabitants of your village.
Plane Toast are touting Caravan SandWitch as a narrative adventure experience, and I certainly cannot disagree with that. There is a lot of narrative, especially when you consider how few characters there actually are on the planet of Cigalo everyone you come across has a lot to say and a history with your character that you’ll be filled in on throughout the conversations too. It’s admirable how much writing and thought has gone into fleshing out the cast, but I worry maybe there’s too much. Conversations led into feeling like they could’ve meant more by saying less. I often felt as though the story of Caravan SandWitch may have been better suited to being told in a comic or through an animated movie rather than asking the player to repeatedly tap through individual sentences of quite long but not necessarily branching or dynamic conversations. Maybe the most interesting narrative thread is with an old friend who you’ve not seen in years has started a family and are individually concerned with the state of Cigalo and ask your opinion on whether they should move to the spaceport, a place referred to often but only visited in the first moments of the game, to provide their baby child a chance at a better future than the community they know dissolving away as it is already but would be worsened by their leaving as the only doctor and engineer on the planet. Interesting conundrum, and not one that I felt remotely able to answer given that I had zero experience of the spaceport or really these characters. This line of discussion was also not resolved in a manner I found satisfying by any means.
I’d go so far as to say there’s a lot more narrative than there is environment puzzle solving to be had here. Missions are very simple fetch style quests, there’s no rushing or timers or urgency or health meters to concern yourself with. You’ll be using the two main upgrades to the van, a scanner and grappling hook, to complete “puzzles” that involve standing on a pad and then walking through a door or pressing a switch so that you can walk through a door. The lack of consequences from wrong actions is probably quite welcoming to some, especially as you can leap from the highest point in the game and land on your feet with no trouble. I don’t think this is a bad decision by any means. Certainly makes it more relaxing to play at your own pave, but the lack of any feedback in the animation or sound that you just fell 50+ stories was oddly absent aside from not being able to walk forward for a second.
After the six hours it took for me to complete Caravan SandWitch (many of which were spent trying to find a single door that I kept missing), I can confidently say I’m not in a rush to go back, even if in the final moment of the game I was presented with an unexpected potentially story-altering choice. Though I am glad such a story exists in such a well presented package, I just hope it finds its audience who can see past the awkward driving and repetitive puzzles.
A Steam code was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes
