Caravan SandWitch Review — Roadtripping

The protagonist of Caravan SandWitch has the same color palette as Lois Griffin, and they expect us not to notice it.

Jokes aside, Caravan SandWitch is a delightful little indie game that sees you darting across a long-forgotten barren planet in a beat-up old van, collecting scrap, helping the local villagers, and uncovering the mystery behind an important disappearance along the way. The first game by developer Studio Plane Toast, Caravan SandWitch, is likely to make a sincere impression on its audience, especially those looking for a nice, relaxing title to play at the end of a long day.

Caravan SandWitch begins with the player character, Sauge, explaining that she recently received a distress symbol from her sister’s ship. The problem with that is that her sister disappeared on the planet Cigalo over six years ago, vanishing without a trace, with this new signal being the only evidence they have and the only way to discover her location and, with it, her fate.

Determined to find her sister, Sauge returns to Cigalo, only to discover that the planet has been plagued by a series of signal jammers popping up across the planet’s surface. After reconnecting with the planet’s inhabitants, whom she grew up with, Sauge is entrusted with the inhabitant’s last exploratory van and given the task of getting rid of the signal jammers for good, giving her a chance to find her lost sister and helping the planet in the process.

I feel like Caravan SandWitch is best described as a road trip game.

The vast majority of the game is spent in the titular van, racing across the countryside and exploring the ruins of civilization that was once there. Exploration and platforming are key as you discover the locations of signal jammers and take them out, charting a once-empty map. Along the way, you’re given the chance to collect old bits of machinery and circuitry, which allow you to build various tools that make your task easier. You can also complete tasks for new and familiar faces, helping out the inhabitants of Cigalo as you go about your quest.

While socializing with said inhabitants is a big part of the game, I think Caravan SandWitch works a lot better when you’re not interacting with Ciaglo’s population and instead just head out on the open road.

While the characters are nice, and the quests can help you get the components you need to upgrade your tools faster, they often account for lots of dialogue and fetch quests that see you gathering a couple of things for the villagers and lugging them back. While I can certainly see players being more invested in the lives and tasks of the game’s villagers, I simply didn’t feel like the dialogue segments or villager quests were nearly as exciting as simply taking to the road and exploring Caravan SandWitch’s open world.

Of course, I did have a couple of characters that I really enjoyed. It goes without saying that Abricot was the favorite.

It’s actually because of the game’s sort of limiting, dialogue-heavy opening that I had trouble figuring out just how I felt about Caravan SandWitch at first. Initially, I was very invested in the first handful of villagers and every quest they offered me, but I quickly found myself thinking, “ok, let’s get on with it,” when it started to feel like the main story was being put on hold for the sake of the opening segment. When the game gives you a car and then locks you in a space that you can traverse in under 30 seconds, it’s easy to start feeling cooped up.

Thankfully, once the game opens up, it really opens up. Caravan SandWitch’s open world is not the largest I’ve ever seen, but is big enough and certainly well-designed. I didn’t get bored of driving around, listening to the game’s superb soundtrack, and taking in the sights between exploring old ruins and industrial graveyards.

Some areas in the open world don’t entirely open up to you until you’ve got a couple of tools created, but it doesn’t necessarily feel restrictive since this just challenges you to collect as much scrap as you can. The game is really good at its quiet moments, with great environmental storytelling to keep you interested as you explore each area without needing any dialogue or written narrative in the moment.

Exploring in Caravan SandWitch is also greatly opened up due to the game’s simple and forgiving approach to mechanics: There is no fall damage, no combat, no death, no stamina bars or timers to make you hurry up. You can explore the game completely at your own pace, which is exactly what makes you want to do so.

Caravan SandWitch isn’t a game to play for a lot of action or crazy, tension-filled moments. It isn’t going to challenge you beyond a simple environmental puzzle and a push to go exploring, and it doesn’t have to. It is a simple game, one that works best in its quiet moments, that just asks you to sit back and enjoy yourself as you take a delightful little road trip across a strangely hopeful, near-apocalyptic planet. It’s perfect for a rainy day when you need a quick break from stress or simply something to shut your brain off after a long day of work, and for that, I certainly recommend it.

Try Hard Guides received a PC review code for this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Caravan SandWitch is available on Steam, Epic Games, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch.