The Wandering Village's loveable rock-turtle giant heads to the ocean with today's big update
The Wandering Village already had a great pitch: it's a citybuilder where you rustle up your village on the back of a massive, lumbering rock-turtle-dragon creature. That pitch is getting even stronger with today’s update, as our giant friend (Onbu) is taking the village on his back (the human headlice) into the ocean. According to developers Stray Fawn Studio, the Ocean Update is the game's biggest to date and adds new buildings, decorations, random events, and of course, the titular ocean biome.
Village management games usually put you in a loop, where you gather resources from the wider world, bring them back home, construct some useful stuff with said resources, and repeat. While you won’t be able to stop in the water - since Onbu’s legs aren’t long enough - that loop is still unbroken. You’ll instead be gathering resources from remote islands and explorable shipwrecks, and while Onbu is doggy paddling, the villagers can catch fish, gather kelp, aor collect seawater, which is useful for extracting salt and watering crops.
Apart from that, The Wandering Village still asks you to upkeep that central symbiotic and/or parasitic relationship with Onbu. Guide your outsized landlord towards nearby fish schools to eat. Use that aforementioned kelp for Onbu’s medical care. Communicate with the beast to avoid dangerous tapeworms and whirlpools. Pet Onbu when it does something cute. Good Onbu, good.
The ocean is the natural next step for The Wandering Village’s early access journey. As Rachel explains in our The Wandering Village review, "the planet is being slowly eroded by toxic spores that make living on the ground near impossible," so the obvious thing to do is drift into the water. That dire setup leads to some interesting decision-making, though, as you "adapt to these changing environments, often on the fly."
The Wandering Village’s early access build is on Steam for $25/£20, though it’s currently discounted thanks to the Steam Sim Fest. Today also marks the game’s release on Xbox consoles and Game Pass. Those glowy jellyfish in the trailer have certainly convinced me, for one, to hop on the ride.
Source: Rock Paper Shotgun
