Not all those who wander are lost, but will you be glad you found “The Wandering Village”
The Wandering Village moseyed on to Steam and Early Access a few years back and now it’s marched it’s way on to well, everywhere. I’ve been playing it on Xbox Series X as part of the consoles Game Preview system. Developer Stray Fawn Studio have spent 6 years making their city builder thus far, there are a few niggles that I could go into, however, none of them are game breaking, mostly just controls labelled incorrectly (looking at you tech tree), but the game is in Game Preview so thats to be expected.
If you’re unfamiliar with the genre, The Wandering Village is a “City Building Game”, does what it says on the tin but to sum it up, you’re tasked with building a settlement, usually from the ground up and over the course of the game unlocking new and better buildings, abilities and equipment to have the most thriving community possible.
The Wandering Village takes this concept and runs away with it, quite literally as your ‘city’ is on the back of an Onbu, a truly huge dinosaur like creature that wanders the planet. This is where The Wandering Village initially intrigued me, not only do you have a city to build, thats full of inhabitants with their own needs and desires but you also must ensure the welfare of Onbu lest your home die. As a general rule I don’t like ‘City Builders’ as a genre, I’ve oft be overheard calling them busy work simulators, but the dinosaur obsessed 6 year old is still alive in me and Onbu was enough to tempt me.
You and your villagers are adrift in a world on the verge of ecological collapse, an awful fungi is spreading across the planet making entire regions uninhabitable, this is when you discover Onbu and the game begins In earnest.
Narrative isn’t something i’d normally associate with a ‘city builder’ but The Wandering Village does a better job that most, rather than just having a ‘campaign mode’ where you have to complete set objectives (it does have one of those, as well as a ‘free play’ mode) there’s a story to uncover. I’ll avoid spoilers but the plot is rather thin and on the nose, and from the initial concept of the game you can guess the themes. However, thin as it may be it’s a very welcome addition, the main reason I dislike ‘city builders’ is that I can’t see the point or find motivation to continue, but this issue is immediately erased with The Wandering Village, I had a reason to keep playing, and that was the story, no matter how thin it was.
For a good long while you’re just a passenger on Onbu and have very little interaction with him, he’ll make his own way around and the game is gentle enough to not let you get immediately overwhelmed. You can off course like in every city builder you can and will need to research upgrades, theses are split into two types, villager based and Onbu based. The Onbu ones range from a horn to direct him (he may not always listen as you’ll need to earn it’s trust) to a disciple tool and even an altar to sacrifice villagers.
The villager ones are pretty standard, homes, resource tools, workshops, and so on. That said there is one that set my imagination running, especially after seeing the games opening. There’s a scavenger building, and your villagers assigned to this will glide from the safety of Onbu into the wilds below. Every time I send the team out, I was excited to see what might pop up, and believe me, things pop up. Some are simple enough, some are moral dilemmas you’ll have to navigate.
Speaking of moral dilemmas, you’re responsible for the safety and prosperity of the village, but also that of Onbu and there are times when you must place the needs of one over the other. Maybe it’s just me but villagers be dammed, I’m not hurting the dinosaur, if and when the villagers don’t like it there’s always that altar I mentioned earlier.
Visually The Wandering Village looks wonderful and is full of a Ghibli-esque whimsey, everything looks like it might have stepped straight from the production office of the great Japanese animation studio. Being in game preview doesn’t really impact the game at all, visually as I said, it’s a charmer, performance isn’t an issue either. Not that the game ever really pushes the hardware it’s just not that sort of game. The only issue with the game are the controls, and lets be honest, city builder on console, we all knew this was coming. To be fair to Stray Fawn Studio they have done an admirable job of developing a control scheme that works well enough on console. I did often find myself getting lost in the top menu along the game which just becomes annoying after the hundredth time, so most the time I’d just use to shortcuts that had been put in place by Stray Fawn Studio. This was productive but did often make me feel like I was just in a a game of menus, something like a football manager game. The Wandering Village does have mouse and keyboard support for consoles, so if you have the option i’d recommend using them.
