NOCLIP Pocket E54 - Humble Bumble - Wandersong

I hope I was able to prove I’m more handy than the average podcast.
Welcome back! Our first game of 2022 is going to be Wandersong, the
indie adventure game that refused to just be an indie adventure
game. In this game, you play a Bard who is clued in to the
forthcoming apocalypse and sets out on an adventure to save the
world. Carried by an immutable (literally and figuratively)
enthusiasm, the Bard overcomes obstacles using a combination of
song and some light platforming mechanics. Tonally, this game is
delightful, with the bard meeting all comers with a positive
attitude and a desire to make peace over all else. It’s a great way
to express the game’s philosophy in a way that manages to be
heartfelt and funny while feeling appropriately storybook even if
it’s a bit on the nose. Mechanically, it’s more of a mixed bag. If
you want to see a developer really try everything, this could be
the perfect game for you, and you certainly will never get tired of
any one thing. However, you can see a bit of a lack of polish
across the game’s many unique mechanics and challenges, although
you’ll never engage with one of them for more than a few minutes at
a time. Put together, this is a game worth giving a shot to if
you’re looking for something colorful that isn’t afraid to
experiment. We’re going to be talking about focusing your game on a
musician and what that means both in presentation and in mechanics,
how a simple narrative can work well when you’re priority is
getting across an emotion, and we determine whether this game’s
McGuffin is better or worse than the Triforce. Thank you for
listening to the podcast this week (and this year)! We should be
back to releasing more regularly from here on out, but it was nice
to have a bit of extra time on this game for the sake of our other
responsibilities over the holidays. Let us know what you think of
this game in the comments or over on our Discord. Were the rapidly
shifting mechanics and simple story a bit too hard for you to take
seriously, or did they come off as amusing, entertaining or just a
novel experiment? Next time, we’re going to be talking about
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight to coincide with our main
episode on Metroid: Dread, so get your Metroidvania brain in gear
because we’re going to be lookin’ at maps for the rest of the
month.