The Wandering Village is a city builder with a twist — your village is on the back of an enormous, roving creature. Intrigued? So were we, so we reached out to developer Stray Fawn Studio and co-founder and game designer Philomena Schwab. Let’s dive in!What is The Wandering Village?The Wandering Village is a city building game set on the back of a giant, wandering creature. We’re tasked with caring for both the villagers and the creature itself, in an attempt to survive the toxic spores spreading across the planet. When does The Wandering Village launch?We don’t yet have a release date for The Wandering Village, but we’ll be sure to update you when we do. What’s it about?From what we’ve been told so far, we know that our villagers are attempting to keep ahead of the toxic spores slowly leeching their way across the planet. Schwab elaborates on this, explaining how the villagers met Onbu, the giant creature whose back will be the basis of our village: “Our villagers have been driven from their homes because of the toxic spores that kept spreading, poisoning the air and the soil. They wandered for a long time, nearly at the end of their strength, constantly fleeing the spreading plague. Luckily,” Schwab adds, “they met Onbu, the giant wandering creature, and found a new home on its back. At the end of the [latest] trailer, Onbu encounters a dead member of its own species, laying still, covered in toxic plants, spores rising into the air. So we are left to wonder how these things might be connected.”It’s a unique idea, to take a city builder and set it on the back of a giant, roaming creature. “My co-worker Micha and I were at an exhibition where we saw a gorgeous concept art of a giant creature with a city on its back,” Schwab explains. “We instantly faced each other and said at the same time, ‘I’ve always wanted to make a game like this!’. We pitched the idea to the rest of the team who were all very excited by it, especially our artists who started sketching creatures right away. And so it became pretty clear what our studio’s next project would be. We are aware that there are many books, movies and even games that feature giant animals, which makes sense since they even make an appearance in the mythology of several countries. But so far, we have never seen a game that focuses on living on a giant creature as a theme and features symbiosis as its main game mechanic.”What’s The Wandering Village’s gameplay like?We’ll need to strike a balance between taking care of our villagers and taking care of Onbu. The villagers will be busy farming crops, scouting, and foraging for rarer resources. But that doesn’t mean that Onbu can just be stripped of all its harvestable materials; the giant creature itself plays an important role in the villagers’ survival, in moving them away from the toxic spores. It will need to be kept healthy and happy to keep it moving on. “Our villagers and the giant creature Onbu are fully dependent on each other during their journey,” Schwab explains. “Toxic spores keep landing on Onbu’s back and the villagers have to make sure to get rid of them. The villagers on the other hand rely on the materials that grow on the giant creature’s back. After some research, players will be able to give the giant creature commands which it may or may not obey, depending on its relationship with the villagers. Cute fun fact,” Schwab adds, “our most requested feature has been the ability to pet Onbu, so we made sure to implement that.”As for the challenges we’ll be facing, Schwab says that “The Wandering Village is a survival game that also features rogue-like elements… it will be more on the challenging side. Resource management will be one of the player’s main concerns for sure as well as trying to keep the needs of their villagers and Onbu balanced out. However we want the game to be calm and relaxing too,” Schwab adds. “Players can pause anytime and consider their next move. Game Overs will be the result of long-term decision making, not moment to moment gameplay.”What’s the world like?Onbu’s back looks as though it will make up the whole world of your village. We’ll travel through a number of different biomes on our journey, dealing with the dangers of each one. Schwab tells us that the Mountains, Desert, and Jungle biomes have all been shown in trailers, while Kickstarter backers also unlocked the Ruins and Water biomes. “Each biome offers unique resources that players need to forage with their villagers… We are still figuring out the details and events of biomes currently.”The Wandering Village employs a beautifully striking art style, combining 3D with hand-drawn 2D elements — such as the villagers themselves. “That is a funny story!” Schwab tells us, when we ask how this art style came about. “It was actually our animator Markus who really really wanted to create 2D hand-animated sprites for the villagers. He is a huge Studio Ghibli fan and ever since we founded the studio, he’s wanted to work on these kinds of animations. He is also a brilliant tech artist and convinced us that the 2D/3D mix would look beautiful and unique with some early prototypes. He was right! This kind of style comes with its own set of problems though which keep challenging us to this day,” Schwab adds. Any news on The Wandering Village achievements? “To be honest, we haven’t designed any achievements yet! However, in our previous games we always liked to add both humorous and challenging achievements,” explains Schwab. “Ideally, the achievements would give you challenges that let you experience the game in a whole new way. So I expect The Wandering Village will take a similar approach.” We’ll be sure to update you as soon as we hear more about The Wandering Village achievements.What do you think? Will you be keeping an eye on The Wandering Village? Let us know in the comments!
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