What if you could take a road trip without the grimy gas station bathrooms and leg cramps, but with all the sightseeing and adventure you want? That’s more or less the pitch for Caravan SandWitch, but with space travel, sentient bipedal frogs, and a smattering of family drama thrown in.
Caravan SandWitch comes from French developer Plane Toast, its world inspired by the diverse landscapes of France’s Provence region. You play as Sauge, a woman who returns to her homeworld of Cigalo to track down the source of a distress call seemingly sent by her sister, who’s been missing and presumed dead for years. To find her, Sauge needs to reconnect with her friends and family back home and solve a mystery that’s keeping them cut off from communication, all with the dramatic remnants of an ecological catastrophe swirling overhead.
Playing as Sauge, you’ll split your time between off-roading in a borrowed van and heading back to town to chat with the neighbors. Caravan SandWitch starts the trip off slowly, giving you ample time to get acquainted with Clémentine and Olivier, who debate leaving Cigalo for the sake of their new baby Abricot, your childhood friend/engineering genius Nèfle, and the rest of the town’s colorful inhabitants. Some celebrate Sauge’s return while others show their frustration at her having left, and their well-drawn relationships help ground your journey as one that’s more about making life better for your friends than saving the world. I do wish these characters had been developed more and played a bigger role in the game’s story, but at least in this intro, they do a good job of setting up the world and the stakes of Sauge’s journey.
That slow start also gives you time to realize some of the game’s other charms — namely, its art and music. Caravan SandWitch looks simply stunning. With bold colors and a cel-shaded style, the world of Cigalo feels rich and lived in, with strewn debris driving home the perilous nature of its wilderness and carefully chosen props giving you insight into its characters with a single glance. I spent an inordinate amount of time taking screenshots, and while I would give anything for a good photo mode to better document Cigalo, I fear for what that would do to my free time.
As good as Caravan SandWitch looks, it sounds even more distinct. Every interaction, from climbing ladders to chatting with NPCs, comes with a flavorful audio cue that’s far from the unobtrusive, realistic sound effects that are all but industry standard. The game is backed by a mellow indie pop soundtrack from composer Antynomy, adding beautiful, ethereal vocals to punctuate key moments. It reminds me of the way Sable used music from the band Japanese Breakfast to great effect — and that’s not the only way Caravan SandWitch brings that excellent 2021 game to mind.
Cigalo once played host to the Consortium, a sci-fi conglomerate that provided steady jobs to the locals in exchange for obedience and a willingness to be treated like crap by their new bosses. Since the Consortium left, the people of Cigalo have been left to fend for themselves, with the addition of a massive storm hanging ominously over the horizon and making things a bit more complicated. On top of that, something’s cut them off from a planet-wide communication network, and it’s up to Sauge to do what she can to ease their troubles.
That mostly means scouring the desert for signal jammers and breaking them to restore the residents’ connection, while gathering up abandoned electronics to build helpful gadgets like a winch to pull locked doors off their hinges and a device for hacking Consortium tech. Again calling to mind Sable, you’ll spend most of your time in Caravan SandWitch just moving through the world, stopping to investigate whatever happens to catch your eye. You do ultimately have objectives to complete, but with no combat, timers, or fail states, you can wander to your heart’s content before getting to work. Its gameplay is all about small interactions like climbing crates and driving across hills, with only simple puzzles keeping you from forward progress.
Caravan SandWitch is a meandering game, with lots of backtracking and aimless wandering built in. That might turn more goal-oriented type A players off, but for me, it just adds to its magic. At any time, you can return to your van with a press of a button, or warp back to town from the game’s menu. I almost never used these options, preferring to move through the world at Sauge’s pace. Even when nothing interesting happens along the way, each trip feels like another chance to immerse yourself in Cigalo’s beauty and enjoy the simple act of existing in a well-realized space.
Caravan SandWitch isn’t trying to be the most exciting game you play this year or keep you hooked with endless tasks and collectibles. It’s content to remain a simple meditation on homecoming, bringing its gorgeous world to life through meditative journeys into its depths. Even with its story wrapped up and no more mysteries to solve, I still find myself wanting to hop back in the van for one more drive across its rolling hills.
