It’s hard to talk about Wanderstop without going into one of the best things about the video game medium — its power to immerse you into fantasy worlds to tell real-world stories, allowing you to feel the marvels of escapism but also see relatable lessons told in a new light.
That’s the intention of newly established indie studio, Ivy Road. Made of creatives who are known for their work on other projects, like The Stanley Parable director Davey Wreden, Gone Home artist Karla Zimonja, and Minecraft composer C418, Wanderstop is the team’s first title, aiming to illustrate the effects of burnout.
In execution, Ivy Road’s debut accomplishes that and more. A narrative-focused, cozy-central game about change & tea, Wanderstop brews even more than what’s boiling under the surface.
In its starting chapter, Wanderstop deals an intense opening revealing the tale of a fighter’s intense rise and tragically relatable downward spiral — showing that burnout can happen to anyone on all levels.
You play as Alta, a brash sword-wielding warrior whose only obsession is fighting, training to get to the top, and continuously doing what’s necessary to win and stay there. After blaming herself for being defeated and losing her edge, she ventures into the forest to find a legendary master who can supposedly train and “fix” her.
After getting lost, exhausted, and collapsing, she wakes up in Wanderstop’s mysterious clearing next to its bright and cheerful shop owner, Boro. With expected cozy game advice such as “tea is good for the body and soul,” Boro suggests the fallen Alta works at the shop as a means to help her recuperate.
Over the course of a small campaign — generally between 10 and 15 hours — you’ll gather ingredients, make tea, tidy and decorate the shop, fulfill customers’ orders, and have Boro follow you on this journey of self-discovery like a wholesome Jiminy Cricket of self-care.
To accomplish this, Wanderstop’s gameplay is thankfully made to only be as challenging as you want it to be.
After gathering tea leaves to turn into tea balls, learning how to grow unique hybrid plants that grow various fruits, and putting together other peculiar ingredients, you’ll throw them all into Wanderstop’s tea brewing machine — a wondrous Willy Wonka-esque contraption that turns the art of making a cracking brew into the fun kind of chore.
It’s just one of the examples of playfulness the shop features like toy cargo trains going under a waterfall acting as a dishwasher, and the horde of adorable item-gathering Pluffins (penguin-puffin hybrids) wandering the grounds.
Pressing the control for the “Highlight” feature, you’ll be able to quickly identify new wandering customers to take orders from, and do the same later on to easily find them again when you need to deliver them their custom brew.
You’ll get more complex requests that challenge your memory and plant-growing skills, but it’s nothing you can’t solve wth your field guide and Book of Answers you later obtain, quickly telling you all you need to know if you just want to move the story along.
Altogether, Wanderstop’s quick-to-learn mechanics and accessible guides make gameplay easily approachable and not too overwhelming — as is the intended premise when you’re playing as a protagonist like Alta in her situation.
Related: MainFrames Is the Cuter Version of Super Meat Boy You Might Actually Beat [Review]
That said, because there’s no rush to fulfil orders or objectives and progress the story, it’s so easy to get lost in the comfortable majesty of explaining the grounds, growing plants for tea ingredients, clipping weeds, sweeping leaves, finding and mailing lost packages, and brewing & tasty new flavours — all with the backing of the magical folksy soundtrack.
Choosing a simple-yet-vivid art style, Wanderstop is designed to make strolling its grounds feel so openly scenic, you can’t help but want to take your time. From the calming use of lighting, music, and shifting colors of seasons, you can’t help but feel the underlying message that it’s okay to slow down and take everything in as you sweep up leaves and clip weeds to find new decorative trinkets and unique mugs to add to your collection.
Along with other mechanics like encouraging Alta to taste different tea flavors — each evoking an old memory depending on the type — you’ll also feel an additionally hidden satisfaction that you’re not just learning more about the protagonist, but that she might be a step further on her journey to sound mental health.
The only issue with its gameplay lies in its inventory management — specifically, in Alta’s pocket size and how items are grouped. In many management games, quantities of the same items are grouped together to make navigation easier.
In Wanderstop, this is the same in its Seeds Pocket, e.g., eight Yellow Seeds, six Blue, three Red, and six Green. However, items in all other pockets do not — making each unit of the same fruits stack together along with mushrooms and tea balls. It makes the already small pocket space fill up far quicker than it needs to.
With that, while some might be compelled to collect as much as they can on one outing around the grounds, you might find lots of instances where you need to off-load items you’ve found at the shop to make room so you can venture back out again to restock — one that could easily be remedied if inventory space were either doubled or other duplicate items could be grouped together.
It’s a small problem, but a niggling one that can be a regular nuisance across a full playthrough.
That said, the issue with inventory management is a meager one in the grand scheme of things as you’re getting immersed in what Wanderstop does best: its narrative.
The story is progressed by meeting and serving a cast of well-designed eccentric characters, soon arriving as samples of this extraordinary part of the world.
For instance, the larger-than-life Gerald the Knight — whose moments involving showing pictures of him with his un-enthused teenage son — are some of the game’s funniest, surprising you with literal laugh-out-loud-levels of absurd moments. Still, there are subtle hints of dark humor that add extra chuckles without being too overbearing.
Each tea request further each customer’s own story with completion, building up additional intriguing narratives along with Alta’s. While dialogue options give you chances to make conversations as brief as possible, each character is so likeable in their own way, it’s easy to want to indulge them as much as possible to learn more about them all.
Nevertheless, as immersive the charm and whimsy can be, Wanderstop isn’t afraid to get right into the real issues of what self-loathing, obsession, and refusing can take care of self can do to one’s wellbeing — which Ivy Road realizes how damaging it can be when you treat a goal or aspiration as the only thing in the world.
What’s more, those more mature segments of storytelling leak into those of the customers’ as well. Without going into spoilers, a good number of new friends you meet and interact with have a personal arc you can’t help but get invested in as the overall plot goes on.
Even outside of Altas’ personal tale and those of the titular tea shop’s guests, Wanderstop’s narrative gets increasingly, enchantingly mysterious — with not only the clearing’s odd seasonal shifts, but a curious abnormality affecting the patrons as well, easing you into the cozy title’s darker elements, but these multiple tonal shifts never feeling out of place as they bounce back and forth.
With director Davey Wreden’s skill for injecting thought-provoking narratives into multi-layered gaming experiences, this comes as no surprise. As Wanderstop goes on and Wreden’s seeming intentions are revealed in an effective “pulling back the curtain” manner, it’s an unexpected concoction of both being on the edge of your seat but also being excited to return to the clearing and craft some more comforting brews.
For a new team made of just 17 members, Wanderstop is a captivating cozy management adventure that works on levels even beyond those expected of the genre.
With a core message about the importance of being aware of burnout and self-care, Ivy Roads’ debut game works both as an approachable tea shop simulator where you can switch you brain off too — along with interweaving a hard-hitting narrative that regularly has you both on the edge of your seat and smiling from ear to ear. Achieving that balance is an insanely difficult feat that any dev team should be commended for.
As a very personal tale that’s relatable to so many, Wanderstop’s unique premise and storybook-like setting will have something for everyone. As far as cozy narrative-focused games go, Ivy Roads’ Wanderstop has raised the bar.
Wanderstop releases on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on March 11. A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. Reviewed on PS5.
![Split Fiction Is a Game You Play for the Journey, Not the Destination [Review]](https://images.verydown.com/uploads/20250311/logo_67d059c9dce1c1.png){kind=logo}
