Wanderstop

Amazing game. Cried in the last chapter. It really made me think about my personal life and how it relates to this story in a way no other game has. I wish there was more but I know all good things must come to an end.

I think this game can be a pretty special experience IF you play it at the right time in your life. Which fortunately was my case, I knew about this game and what it was about before hand and I played it precisely because of that. I have been experiencing burnout for the past few months, not because I'm a workaholic or an over-achiever, but because of the simple fact that I don't know how to properly rest, like the protagonist Alta, I have to be doing something at all times, because if I'm not doing anything I feel like I'm wasting time. This game invites you to take a second and be bored for a little while, just exist for a moment. The steam achievements for this game are not tied to any progression or challenges, instead all of them are given to you through the passing of the hours, without doing anything in particular, the NPCs stories are often left unfinished and your crops and decorations are reset several times. The game forces you to move on, this is all for the sake of teaching you to JUST LET GO. If this was a game like Stardew valley for example you would spend and ungodly amount of time trying to complete checklists or max-out your relationships and keep ACHIEVING things, you HAVE to keep unlocking things, you HAVE to make progress towards a goal, you HAVE to optimize, RIGHT?! Wanderstop helped me realize how exhausting that mindset can be. [spoiler] But the game is not a cure for burnout or anxiety, even Alta, by the end feels frustrated that her problems can't be solved by just trying harder or learning a secret technique that would fix everything, but at the very least she (and the player) can now identify the problem and put in the work to get better. "To be able to see something is perhaps not as pleasant as being able to fix... But seeing is a wonderful first step" - Boro [/spoiler]

A truly wonderful experience. I think there is something for everyone to take away from this game. If you struggle to connect with this one than I highly recommend to slow down and just take your time with it. Yes, its systems aren't perfect and I didn't reeeally engage with anything that you could call optional but it still spoke to me on a deeper level and I will definitely remember it as one of my favorite experiences of the past few years

I am sick rn and this is curing me slighty

This game is beautiful. I think if anyone has gone through moments in their life where their health has caused them to forcibly hold back, will understand this game a lot. Sometimes the best way to move forward is to stand still.

A slow, chill game, that is ideal if you need some relax after a nervous day. And let's be real, those are way too many ...

[h1]Ponderslop[/h1] If games like [i]PEAK[/i] and [i]Big Walk[/i] can be called "friendslop," I think my cheeky descriptor of this game is equally valid. A game with significant core strengths, and no shortage of weaknesses. But to focus overmuch on those weaknesses would be... missing the forest for the trees, you might say. Unfortunately, its strengths don't necessarily make it an easy recommend. Ultimately, this is a game about mental health, about dealing with the pressure of feeling compulsion for success, and about forcing oneself to take time to relax. This is a game that seems laser-focused at a particular kind of person - the kind of person who doesn't necessarily pick up cozy indie games on Steam and sink 10 hours into them on a whim - and who is willing to, let's say, accept several compromises about how those 10 hours are spent in the spirit of embracing the message of the game. I did not like it. I'm sorry! I didn't. Between the fact that the weaknesses are in fact weaknesses - which I won't bore you with and invite counterarguments for here - the reality is that my free time is both scarce and zero-sum; the fact that I was spending no small amount of it to hear what this game had to say, sorta already proved that I wasn't in dire need of its message in the first place. [b]I know how to relax with cozy games; I have played them before. The problem is that the salience of this game's message, for me, is overshadowed by the many ways in which it is inferior to other cozy games that I have played.[/b] If that's sounds damning, that's because it is - but I'd rather be forthright about my core issue with the game than skirt around the fact and damn it with faint praise. So, why the thumbs-up? Well, all told, I still think there's enough "there" there. [b]Someone[/b] is going to take a lot from this game; someone who has struggled with feelings of inferiority, someone who struggles with resting anxiety, someone who - well, frankly, someone who should probably seek therapy instead of looking for a $25 indie game to fix them. But therapy can be expensive and this game is fairly cheap when it's on sale, so pick this one up if you're looking for a certain type of game: a game about internal exploration, about confronting feelings that maybe you've been dimly aware of but never paid attention to, about learning to accept what you can't change about yourself and, maybe, learn some things you can. Y'know... a Ponderslop kind of game. Narrowly recommended.