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Wanderstop
Wanderstop is a 2025 cozy game developed by Ivy Road and published by Annapurna Interactive. Written and directed by Davey Wreden, composed by C418, and edited by Karla Zimonja, it follows a former warrior named Alta, whose painful losses in combat have led her to help tend a tea shop with its owner, Boro, with an aim to heal herself. The gameplay includes a system of tea brewing and farming by planting seeds in a hex grid, creating more seeds and fruit for use in the tea, as the shop and its customers are attended to throughout the narrative.
After C418 and Wreden each had ideas for a video game by 2015, development on the game began around 2017. Lasting over seven years, it was completed in Unreal Engine and utilized the Blueprints visual scripting software for no-code development. Though Wreden's vision was originally only to make a cozy game, Wanderstop's focus shifted to the subject of trauma when Zimonja joined development, and Wreden chose to integrate his feeling of burnout from developing The Stanley Parable and The Beginner's Guide into the narrative. The art design, taking inspiration from other cozy games, draws elements of Impressionist art and Art Nouveau. C418's original score plays dynamically according to the player's actions.
Wanderstop was released on March 11, 2025 for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S. The game was praised for its characters, art and world design, narrative, and music, while the gameplay received a more divisive response.
The game's protagonist, Alta, was once an undefeated fighter who spent her entire life training in her craft. Unable to recover from two recent defeats, she seeks the legendary fighter Master Winters to train her, but collapses in a forest. Getting nowhere by continuing to try and push on, Alta is invited to stay and work around the Wanderstop tea shop by its jovial owner Boro, as she attempts to "fix" what is wrong with her.
Wanderstop's cast of characters have stories which play out in multi-step quests. Boro speaks idiosyncratically and is easygoing. The customers include a man named Gerald, who is under a witch's curse that controls his limbs and pretends to be a knight in order to impress his son, who is aware of his silliness; a demon hunter who is left without demons to hunt and instead tries to aid communities through social work; and Nana, an old lady who sets up shop in Wanderstop's clearing, considering everyone a business competitor.
A central gameplay mechanic in Wanderstop is tea making. Alta collects tea leaves in a basket from bushes outside the shop, leaving them in a bowl to dry and turn into a tea ball. The tea balls are an ingredient used in a complex tea brewing contraption, which is of a size that requires the use of a ladder to access all of its components. Pulling a rope fills the flask with water, hitting the bellows causes the water to boil, and after kicking a valve, Alta throws in the tea ball and any other ingredients into the infuser. After this process is completed, the tea is transferred to the "pouramid", which fills cups with the finished tea. Customers may ask for a drink providing a desired effect, which different fruits will produce; a field guide can be consulted to attain knowledge of the proper one. Wanderstop's farming system is based on patterns on a hex grid. Seeds planted in rows of three become seed-producing "small hybrids", while planting seeds in a triangular pattern grows a fruit-producing "large hybrid". Different seed combinations produce different types of fruits.
Alta can roam the grounds to trim weeds, water plants, and sweep leaves to find decorative items or dirty teacups. She can return lost items via mail or frame photos on walls. Alta can brew tea for herself and drink it while sitting on a bench; using different fruits in the brew causes Alta to elicit and ponder different memories. Penguin-like "pluffins" roam the clearing, and they may steal items left around unattended. The mechanics of Wanderstop are designed to not cause stress; customers will wait for as long as it takes you to prepare the tea, botching a drink does not result in punishment but rather the opportunity to try again, and the activities have guides to help the player figure them out. The story progresses in chapters, which each have different moods and change the clearing to different colors.
The game designer Davey Wreden released the full edition of his game, The Stanley Parable, in October 2013. Wreden struggled with the game's wide success; six months after release, Wreden began therapy, and took several months of drawing lessons, where he sketched woodland scenes. As early as 2015, composer and sound designer Daniel Rosenfeld, known by his pseudonym C418, had considered creating a video game. He described several experimental concepts, anticipating development would take time. C418 said he was open to collaborating with others on the ideas. At the same time, Wreden had just released his video game The Beginner's Guide, but had been working for so long he found himself unable to write. In January 2016, he had begun to daydream of going to a tea shop in the woods and lying on a bench by the water, and after sketching variations of the scene, decided that image would become the basis of his next game.
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Wanderstop AI simulator
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Wanderstop
Wanderstop is a 2025 cozy game developed by Ivy Road and published by Annapurna Interactive. Written and directed by Davey Wreden, composed by C418, and edited by Karla Zimonja, it follows a former warrior named Alta, whose painful losses in combat have led her to help tend a tea shop with its owner, Boro, with an aim to heal herself. The gameplay includes a system of tea brewing and farming by planting seeds in a hex grid, creating more seeds and fruit for use in the tea, as the shop and its customers are attended to throughout the narrative.
After C418 and Wreden each had ideas for a video game by 2015, development on the game began around 2017. Lasting over seven years, it was completed in Unreal Engine and utilized the Blueprints visual scripting software for no-code development. Though Wreden's vision was originally only to make a cozy game, Wanderstop's focus shifted to the subject of trauma when Zimonja joined development, and Wreden chose to integrate his feeling of burnout from developing The Stanley Parable and The Beginner's Guide into the narrative. The art design, taking inspiration from other cozy games, draws elements of Impressionist art and Art Nouveau. C418's original score plays dynamically according to the player's actions.
Wanderstop was released on March 11, 2025 for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S. The game was praised for its characters, art and world design, narrative, and music, while the gameplay received a more divisive response.
The game's protagonist, Alta, was once an undefeated fighter who spent her entire life training in her craft. Unable to recover from two recent defeats, she seeks the legendary fighter Master Winters to train her, but collapses in a forest. Getting nowhere by continuing to try and push on, Alta is invited to stay and work around the Wanderstop tea shop by its jovial owner Boro, as she attempts to "fix" what is wrong with her.
Wanderstop's cast of characters have stories which play out in multi-step quests. Boro speaks idiosyncratically and is easygoing. The customers include a man named Gerald, who is under a witch's curse that controls his limbs and pretends to be a knight in order to impress his son, who is aware of his silliness; a demon hunter who is left without demons to hunt and instead tries to aid communities through social work; and Nana, an old lady who sets up shop in Wanderstop's clearing, considering everyone a business competitor.
A central gameplay mechanic in Wanderstop is tea making. Alta collects tea leaves in a basket from bushes outside the shop, leaving them in a bowl to dry and turn into a tea ball. The tea balls are an ingredient used in a complex tea brewing contraption, which is of a size that requires the use of a ladder to access all of its components. Pulling a rope fills the flask with water, hitting the bellows causes the water to boil, and after kicking a valve, Alta throws in the tea ball and any other ingredients into the infuser. After this process is completed, the tea is transferred to the "pouramid", which fills cups with the finished tea. Customers may ask for a drink providing a desired effect, which different fruits will produce; a field guide can be consulted to attain knowledge of the proper one. Wanderstop's farming system is based on patterns on a hex grid. Seeds planted in rows of three become seed-producing "small hybrids", while planting seeds in a triangular pattern grows a fruit-producing "large hybrid". Different seed combinations produce different types of fruits.
Alta can roam the grounds to trim weeds, water plants, and sweep leaves to find decorative items or dirty teacups. She can return lost items via mail or frame photos on walls. Alta can brew tea for herself and drink it while sitting on a bench; using different fruits in the brew causes Alta to elicit and ponder different memories. Penguin-like "pluffins" roam the clearing, and they may steal items left around unattended. The mechanics of Wanderstop are designed to not cause stress; customers will wait for as long as it takes you to prepare the tea, botching a drink does not result in punishment but rather the opportunity to try again, and the activities have guides to help the player figure them out. The story progresses in chapters, which each have different moods and change the clearing to different colors.
The game designer Davey Wreden released the full edition of his game, The Stanley Parable, in October 2013. Wreden struggled with the game's wide success; six months after release, Wreden began therapy, and took several months of drawing lessons, where he sketched woodland scenes. As early as 2015, composer and sound designer Daniel Rosenfeld, known by his pseudonym C418, had considered creating a video game. He described several experimental concepts, anticipating development would take time. C418 said he was open to collaborating with others on the ideas. At the same time, Wreden had just released his video game The Beginner's Guide, but had been working for so long he found himself unable to write. In January 2016, he had begun to daydream of going to a tea shop in the woods and lying on a bench by the water, and after sketching variations of the scene, decided that image would become the basis of his next game.