Caravan SandWitch first caught my eye because it was colourful and filled with places to explore. But the story and the gameplay loop is what got me hooked! The game is nearly stress-free: there is no timer, death, or combat. In the game, Sauge has lived away from her home planet of Cigalo since her sister Garance went missing six years ago. But when Sauge gets a distress signal from her sister’s ship, she must investigate. She will help those remaining on the post-apocalyptic Cigalo (and help the planet itself) while looking for her sister. For me, the initial mystery was less about Garance and more about the titular SandWitch.
Cigalo is a post-apocalyptic planet where the devastation is human-made. The planet has few remaining inhabitants. It’s mostly a desert wasteland. Inspired by Provence, the sci-fi world has several distinct areas; you will find lush forests, ancient ruins, and an excessive amount of bumpy roads through the desert. When you enter an area for the first time, you are greeted by its name in large letters. Explore Cigalo quickly by zipping around in your trusty van or more closely by foot. The map starts small but fills in as you progress through the quests.
When Sauge returns to Cigalo following the unexpected distress signal, her former family and friends have varying reactions. She left without a word and stayed away without a peep, so some are reasonable upset with her and some are just happy she is safely at home. It’s too bad her father isn’t there to greet her: he wandered into the dangerous desert and has yet to return days later. The story is super intriguing, but it is also so easy to get carried away with exploration and let the story melt away for some time. Thankfully, It all comes together in the end.
The cast of characters features a wide array of folks and is incredibly inclusive. Same-sex couples, proper pronouns, the works. (I know the developer focused on this aspect and it really shows.) There aren’t just humans on Cigalo, either. It is also home to an old aboriginal species (the Reinetos), Robots left behind after the planet’s exploitation was complete, and the mysterious SandWitch themselves. Regardless of their origin, everyone lives peacefully while helping each other. Everyone is an individual, and each one has a different outlook on life. Some are cranky yet loveable, some are in tough situations, and the baby can’t get enough cheese. (I love Abricot!)
The trailer below will be available upon the game’s launch:
I don’t normally write about settings/options and accessibility this soon while reviewing games. However, there are extensive options in Caravan SandWitch that can change how the game looks and (more importantly) plays; I think it is worth discussing before I get to my gameplay experience. Some of your settings are common among video games: language, mini-map orientation, sliders for various sound channels, graphics quality, camera inversion, camera sensitivity, driving controls, and more are all options I’ve repeatedly seen before. There is a slider to make the interface transparency go from 0% to 100%, but a one-button in-game trigger would be especially nice for taking screenshots.
There are also helpful accessibility options. Some are in the accessibility section, while the rest are scattered among the other categories. The accessibility options that stand out for me are the radar that plays audio and visual cues when you are nearby something to interact with, and the motion-sickness reduction. The radar is extraordinarily helpful for someone whose focus is… lacking. When I’m near something I can interact with, a little bing noise and a glowing icon help me find it. As for the motion-sickness reduction, I don’t know if it works. After an hour of playing, I begin to feel nauseous — but I’m also sick right now so it could just be me. In the game section, you can trigger manual or automatic climbing mode. Automatic allows Sauge to climb up small obstacles without hitting a button — it sounds like nothing, but those clicks add up!
For the most part, the actual gameplay of Caravan SandWitch impressed me. The game guides you through learning its controls, beginning in the space station. I encountered one issue when I needed to run before it taught me, so I had to check in settings. Otherwise, learning how to play is well incorporated with the story and gameplay. There is a great learning curve. I am known for immediately forgetting what I’ve been taught in tutorials (it’s a gift) but here, I remembered it all.
As Sauge, you can do lots of fun stuff. Of course, there’s your van, but I will get there later. You can run endlessly or jump off tall cliffs without concern. It’s such a chill game, it soothes me. Anyway, Sauge can climb rocks, buildings, and ladders. She can even get to hard-to-reach places once she assembles a pulley. There are a lot of environmental puzzles where you need to move through a labyrinth of rooms or platforms to complete your goal.
The bulk of the gameplay is through your quests and side quests. Sauge’s return begins with a task: build an antenna and use it to find jammers on communication towers, then smash them up one by one. A lot of side quests have the same footprint: help someone(s), get items in return, and disassemble the item for parts you will need in other quests. It’s a quick way to collect loads of common parts, and I like that the side quests contribute directly to your main quests. Some side quests are labelled time-sensitive, but I’ve never had one disappear before I could get to it.
Caravan SandWitch is divided into chapters. Before a chapter ends, you will be asked if you’re sure about that part of the game because you can’t return. It’s an easy way to fit in as many side quests as possible. On the other hand, at times your main quest will block you from doing anything else as long as it’s ongoing. For example, when I wanted to see a lovely elderly lady named Rose about her tomatoes the van invisibly got picked up and plopped at Sauge’s home base (a garage). It was kindly pointed in the other direction — the correct direction.
Aside from your missing sister, the environmental disaster, and the SandWitch, the game is about the other part of its title: the caravan! I’m all for van life. The adorable yellow van is borrowed from Rose, but she doesn’t seem to care that Sauge keeps adding modifications and upgrading it with large items like the antenna that soon towers over its roof. The van became a companion to me. It sheltered me, got me places fast, helped me find things, and even did some sick jumps off ramps scattered across Cigalo. Driving it is easy (depending on your settings), even for me. LT goes back, RT goes forward, and A makes you go faster. I instantly managed a three-point turn, something I never seem to get right in other games. As a bonus time-saver, you can return to the van with a touch of a button regardless of where it is; there’s an option to cancel it quickly, too, if you made a mistake or changed your mind. If you’d prefer the old-fashioned way, you can follow a marker that always points towards it and states how far away it is in metres.
I cannot say enough good things about Caravan SandWitch. It is a top-tier chill game. You can tell the instant Sauge steps foot on Cigalo: it’s especially calm for a post-apocalyptic planet, save for a massive storm brewing far out. The very few elements that didn’t work in my favour aren’t enough to even consider lowering my score for the game. That yellow van is instantly iconic the second you lay eyes on any visual of it. Caravan SandWitch has simple controls, colourful graphics, and oddly enough no sense of pending doom (despite Cigalo being on the edge of extinction.)
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