The pitch for Wanderstop is pretty simple. It’s a cozy tea shop simulator where you play as an ex-fighter named Alta who fulfills orders for the travelers who end up at the tea shop she temporarily works at. While that description is accurate for what you’ll be doing in the game, it doesn’t really touch what Wanderstop is really about.
While Wanderstop seems like any other cozy game about farming and talking with quirky characters to add to the ever-growing pile, the game is actually about burnout and what happens to a person when they push themselves to the point of breaking. It’s a game that took me by surprise and had me confront a lot of the unhealthy habits that have plagued my life for the last several years.
The First Step
My goal is not to turn this into a personal journal, but I’ve struggled with several long-standing mental health issues for my entire life. I’ve spent years getting a handle on them to help with my functioning, however, a few years ago I had some major relapses that set me back and I’ve been struggling to get a handle on them once more. Since then, I’d convinced myself that I’m doing great while actively ignoring all the signs that I’m not. Seeing Alta do the same thing at the start of Wanderstop opened my eyes to the way I’ve been behaving.
Alta was once the best fighter in the entire world, an undefeated champion until she suffers several losses all in a row and flees to the forest in search of a master sword fighter to train her. She gets lost along the way, her sword inexplicably gets heavier, and she eventually finds herself at the Wanderstop tea shop run by a lovable barista named Boro. Despite Boro’s insistence that she take a break and rest, Alta continues to try and push forward at every turn.
There are a lot of very obvious signs that Alta isn’t in a healthy place despite her ability to function at a high level. She’s driven and intelligent, but her constant desire to push past her burnout despite the toll it’s taking on her body and mind mirrors a lot of the ways that I push myself in the wrong direction thinking I’m doing something good when in reality I’m enabling the cycle of dysfunction I’ve been living in. What makes Wanderstop so effective at forcing me to reflect is the way I relate to Alta’s struggles while also being able to clearly identify where she’s going wrong.
Sometimes it’s difficult to understand that your problems are actually problems, but when you see someone else doing those things, it makes them easier to confront. Like Alta, I hold myself to a much higher standard than I would ever hold anyone else to, and watching her grapple with that fact and show herself kindness tells me that I can as well.
It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint
It might seem a little silly to turn to video games for genuine life advice, but what I appreciate about Wanderstop is, although its writing might be seen as heavy-handed to some, the game has many poignant philosophical truths to share.
Alta and Boro are philosophically opposed when the game starts. Alta is all about action and results, while Boro is someone uninterested in where he’s going as long as he feels at peace with the direction he’s headed. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with Alta’s worldview, Boro helps her understand that it’s extremely unhealthy when taken to its extreme.
“Boredom can be a wonderful luxury,” Boro tells her, and in turn, tells me. He’s right, but that’s something I often forget. Many of the things Boro reminds Alta of might feel like platitudes, sentiments that seem deep but are too often repeated to bear any meaning. The good thing about many of those ideas, however, is that, because they seem so obvious, I often forget them.
As Alta tries to convince Boro time and time again that she sees an apparition of herself in the woods and that it’s a malicious outsider, he helps her understand what he and the player have known the entire time: that there’s no one in the forest but Alta. She is standing in her own way.
It seems like generic advice, but when you watch a character like Alta, someone entirely relatable and grounded, listen to the advice her friend gives her and learn something from it, it really makes you reflect. I’m not sure how I’m going to begin addressing the issues with myself that I’ve been ignoring for so long, but thanks to Wanderstop, I know I need to do something. There came a time in my playthrough when the character I watched white-knuckling their way through life and recovery stopped being Alta and started being me, and now that Alta’s journey is done, it’s time for me to get to the end too.
Adventure
Indie Games
Simulation
