Wandersong
Wandersong is a puzzle adventure video game developed by American-Canadian indie developer Greg Lobanov. A music-themed game, it follows The Bard, a wandering singer, as they go on a quest to gather pieces of a song that will save their world from destruction. In the game, the player uses The Bard's singing to affect the environment, solve puzzles, and defend against enemies. Developed in GameMaker Studio, the game was inspired by Lobanov's experiences on a cross-country bike trip across the United States and juxtaposes a positive atmosphere and protagonist with an apocalyptic setting. Games such as Kirby's Epic Yarn and animated cartoons such as Over the Garden Wall and Steven Universe informed the game's tone, pace, and art style. The game's audio was co-produced with A Shell in the Pit; Gordon McGladdery, who worked on Duelyst, Parkitect, and Rogue Legacy, composed the game's music and Em Halberstadt, who worked on Night in the Woods, directed the game's sound design. Wandersong was released on macOS, Microsoft Windows, and Nintendo Switch in September 2018, PlayStation 4 in January 2019, and Xbox One in December 2019.
Gameplay
Wandersong is a side-scrolling puzzle and adventure game that uses music as a puzzle-solving mechanic. The player character can sing to cause events to occur in the environment around them, using a coloured "song wheel" with eight directions, each representing musical notes spanning an octave, which is controlled by the mouse on a computer setup, or the right thumbstick on a controller. Certain challenges in the game involve the player matching notes or tunes with a non-player character's song, similar to a typical rhythm game. Functions that allow the player to perform dances also exist, but do not actually serve a purpose in gameplay. Wandersong is set in a universe created by a goddess named Eya who "sang the universe into existence." Every epoch, Eya sings a brand new song that destroys the universe and creates a new one. The player character, known as The Bard, makes an attempt to gather the pieces of the "Earthsong", a composition that, when sung, will allow the universe to be preserved. The game is estimated to be 11 hours in length.Plot
The game is broken up into a prologue and then seven acts, each with a variety of "scenes" in them.In the prologue, the main character, a bard is having a dream. He sees a sword and tried to pick it up to fight a monster, but ultimately fails. He sees the messenger of the god, Eya, and she tells him that the world is ending, and that he didn't pass the test and isn't "The Hero."
In Act One, the bard wakes up from his dream near the town of Langtree. when he arrives at Langtree, he finds many different ghosts are haunting it, but he can calm them down with his singing. From the oldest woman of the village, Ruby, he learns the Overseer Song which will enable him to visit the overseer, a minor god and protector of a certain area. He then tries to go meet with the Dream King, the overseer of Langtree, and while in the spirit world sees the messenger again, who tells him about the Earthsong, a legendary song which he can gather from different pieces given by all the Overseers of the world which might be able to save the world. The Dream King doesn't give him the part of the song he has, but does give the bard the ability to communicate with other Overseers and ghosts. He returns to Langtree and finishes saving them from the ghosts, now able to communicate with them. He finds they're all their dead relatives
In Act Two, the bard meets Miriam and her grandmother Sapphy, who are witches. Sapphy sends Miriam, a loner who is constantly frustrated by the bard's singing, to assist him in saving the world by collecting the pieces of the Earthsong. They go through a cave of trolls, and find that one of them had a curse cast upon them by an evil human. The bard tries to break the curse with singing but doesn't succeed. They then arrive at the neighboring town of Delphi. There the bard meets Manny, a drummer who's trying to put together a band, and gathers the band members of Ash and Viola. They all perform and are wildly successful. Ash then comes out and performs the Overseer song. The bard then goes through the spirit world and gets the Queen of Winds' part of the Earthsong. The bard then returns to the troll-cave and frees the cursed troll, before setting sail on the ocean.
In Act Three, the bard and Miriam are sailing on a ship of coffee-trading pirates. They meet Captain Lucas, who wants to try and find the mermaids who disappeared a long time ago. A fortune teller tells the bard that the mermaids know the Overseer song. One of the crew members, Markus, captures and imprisons the whole crew, but the bard manages to talk him out of it. The bard and Captain Lucas then find and meet the mermaids, who decide to return as long as Captain Lucas stays calm, and gives the bard the Overseer song. He visits the spirit world and sees the Queen Chaos, but before he can get the overseer song she is killed by Audrey Redheart, the Hero. Despite that, he obtains the Earthsong piece from her dead body, being able to talk to ghosts.
In the Intermission, the user briefly plays as The Hero who kills the Queen of Winds, another Overseer.
In Act Four, the bard is depressed and wakes up in his mothers house in the town of Chimest. Everyone in the town is sad because they're all forced to work in the factory or with an extension of the factory, run by The Baron, and what it produces, Happy Kid dolls. Miriam figured out the Overseer song and how to access the spirit world, but is unable to because of the pollutants from the factory. He teams up with the local astronomer and gathers a team of Winston and Peter, who has fallen in love with Miriam, though she does not reciprocate the love. Together the four of them take down the factory, and go see The Baron, who truly wanted to make everyone in the world happy by making the Happy Kid dolls, but didn't realize he was simply making everyone miserable. The factory shuts down and people are a lot happier. The bard then goes into the spirit world and finds that Queen Order isn't sitting on her throne, as the Dream King is on it, trying to avoid The Hero, who is killing Overseers. The Hero kills Queen Order, but the Dream King escapes. From communicating with Queen Order's spirit the bard learns the next part of the song.
In Act Five, there is a war between two neighboring kingdoms, Rulle and Chaandesh. The citizens of Rulle all have spirit pets, and the citizens of Chaandesh are all witches. Giant monsters are appearing and terrorizing the inhabitants of both nations. A ghost gives the bard a message to deliver to the King of Rulle, and as such the bard and Miriam head to Xiatian, the capitol city. Along the way they save a near-empty town called Lumber Town, inhabited only by the infirm and elderly who were unable to make the journey to the capitol, from a swarm of monsters. There they sing a song about a wayfarer who comes across a witch and they fall in love, but the witch curses the wayfarer and steals her soul, although they are in love, showing the distrust of witches by Rulle citizens, but also slightly reflecting the bard and Miriam's relationship, which causes Miriam to be sad. When they arrive at Xiatian, the find the hero has already arrived and is idolized by the town for defeating giant monsters and saving the city. They realize that in order to meet the King they have to go with the Hero, who lets them come along as long as they provide her with a potion of strength. Miriam cooks up a possibly faulty potion of strength, but gives it to her regardless as she dislikes the Hero. When they see the King, he reveals they're going to invade Chaandesh in three days. The ghost inside the bard sings a message imploring him to seek peace, before the bard passes out. When he wakes up Miriam is flying him across the border and reveals that they were thrown in prison there, and are now going to the nexus point in order to access the spirit world. Miriam plays the Overseer song on her piccolo, but the messenger reveals that there is a second part, held by the queen of Chaandesh. They then fly over the border, but are knocked down by magic from "the Spell Squad", a defense force against the monster consisting of two witches, Vivian and Sandra. The bard and Miriam team up with them to fight some monsters, and they then put them on a boat which will take them to the capital city, Mohabumi. On the boat the bard learns that the spirit inhabiting him is Hala, a deceased Chaandesh princess. He also puts on a performance with the musicians there. The capital city is inside a mountain, and on account that everyone inhabiting it is a witch, requires magic to get around. The bard learns that magic is just a form of singing, and uses that to be able to cast very primal spells to get around the city. There the bard sees the band from Delphi, who are ecstatic to see him, and are putting on a performance with a new singer. While at the concert Miriam reveals she always felt out of place and lonely being a witch, and expected to feel accepted here, but doesn't as much as she thought. She says that she's just going to dance and be herself for a bit. The bard goes to see the Queen and Hala makes an appeal to her to stop the fighting, as it's all a misunderstanding. The Queen rebuffs them, but Purnima, one of Hala's sisters, teaches them the Overseer song. The bard and Miriam enter the spirit world, but are separated, and find things are in disarray, and the spirit world is being pulled together and is collapsing. The Hero shows up and knocks out Miriam. The two Overseers then fight and destroy each other. In the aftermath of that the bard learns two parts of the song from their spirits, and following that the spirit world ends. Having carried Miriam out of the spirit world, the bard sings a song to both nations, bringing them together and making them understand one another, ending the war. Miriam was badly injured by the Hero and decides she is unable to go on, instead she will return to see her grandmother as the end of the world draws nearer. The bard continues on alone.
In Act Six, the bard climbs Ichor Mountain, at the top of which is the King of Hearts. Along the way he finds the Heart of Eya Temple, with some monks remaining in it, awaiting the world's end. With the help of bird, bugs, and flying seals the bard makes it up to the top of the mountain. At the top he finds the King of Hearts has been overtaken by darkness. The Hero shows up, attempting to kill it, but drinks the defective strength potion and is weakened. Both the Hero and the bard are knocked out back to a cave partway down the mountain, and the Hero loses her sword. There, with the help of the bugs the bard befriended earlier, they make it out of the cave, but the bard makes Audrey promise not to kill the King of Hearts. They find the King of Hearts again, and the Hero finds her sword and kills him, breaking her promise. The bard gets the Earthsong from his body before returning to Langtree.
In Act Seven, the bard returns to Langtree to find that it is unrecognizable, nearly completely destroyed with all the citizens awaiting the world's end. He reencounters Miriam, who says she feels bad for leaving him. Miriam now fully accepts and is happy with her friendship with the bard. The two reunite and set off for the Dream Castle, which is not completely in the real world after the spirit world collapsed. They reencounter the Dream King who reveals to them that the end isn't going to happen soon, but is happening, and that the end is the people moving apart from one another and everyone losing hope. He says that the Earthsong can't stop that, and only something that unites everyone in harmony can do that. He says their quest is hopeless. Suddenly, the Hero appears and tries to strike down the Dream King. The bard and Miriam work together to stop the Hero from killing her, with Miriam finally stealing her sword. The Hero tells them that she was chosen and she was the special one, and she has to do this because she is the Hero. The bard tries to convince her otherwise, saying she would be special no matter what. Regardless, the Hero uses her scarf to reclaim her sword and kills the Dream King. The world becomes entirely black and white, but a bell rings out in the darkness. The bard sings, reaching out with his voice to everyone across the world, and everyone responds in harmony. The world returns to color and is saved. The messenger tells them that the bard didn't sing the Earthsong, but sang something different yet also special, which united everyone in the world and harmonized with Eya's song, saving the world. Miriam then takes the bard all around the world to all different parts of his journey to reunite with his friends. Finally, he returns to Langtree where he has dinner with Sapphy and Miriam. The bard says to Miriam although it's goodbye for now, they still will be friends. They hug each other, and then the bard goes home.
Development
Wandersong was developed in GameMaker Studio by Greg Lobanov, who had also built a custom level editor and audio editor to create the game. It marks Lobanov's return to story-driven games, a milestone that had been a goal of his after years of learning game design skills developing games such as Perfection and Coin Crypt. Development on the game started in October 2015, and was inspired by a cross-country bike trip Lobanov took across the United States from October 2014 to March 2015. Lobanov wanted to translate the "feel of that journey", where he had met various people and felt overwhelmed by their perceived kindness and generosity. Lobanov originally went for a more literal interpretation of the cross-country bike trip that inspired him, developing games about biking. He was ultimately dissatisfied with these early concepts, feeling that they were "missing the spirit of the trip", and opted to create a game with a "really hippy, dopey, joyful rainbow message" that resembled his experiences on the trip. Lobanov's tenure in the "Indie House" in Vancouver, British Columbia early in development had an influence on the game's direction, as Lobanov shared his ideas with, and received feedback from, fellow game developers. Wandersong was funded through a Kickstarter campaign that successfully raised US$21,936 from 989 contributors in February 2016.Lobanov invented the game's "song wheel" mechanic as a way to encourage the player to experiment with the environment, as opposed to the specificity of other music-related mechanics in games such as '. The wheel was designed with accessibility in mind; Lobanov designed Wandersong so that the solutions to puzzles would always be hinted at through direction, rather than sound and colour alone, allowing players with color blindness or hearing loss to solve the game's puzzles. The introduction of new uses of the song wheel in each of the game's puzzle areas complements the absence of a consistently rising difficulty curve, allowing the game to also be accessible to players with a lower skill set in puzzle solving. Many puzzles in Wandersong were reworked from their initial, more complex iterations, after game testers and patrons at conventions, where the game was showcased during development, found them difficult or hard to understand.
The game's "paper cutout" art style is primarily inspired by Kirby's Epic Yarn and its "physical feeling", the simplicity of which was also easier for Lobanov to work with as the game's sole programmer and artist. Characters flip over like paper when changing direction in the game's two-dimensional art style. The game's visuals have drawn comparisons by observers to ' and the Paper Mario series. Its story, which Lobanov had planned the beginning and ending of from the start of development, is mostly constructed out of spontaneous ideas Lobanov had during development based on the game's core mechanic of singing, which were made easier to implement through the custom level editor and the minimalist art style. The apocalyptic setting of Wandersong is juxtaposed with an optimistic and positive atmosphere. Lobanov felt that a completely positive atmosphere would result in a "really empty experience", and decided to add tension through "really dark, scary, big things" to the game's story and opposing it with a "carefree, happy response" from The Bard. The game's non-intimidating tone and pace was informed by animated cartoons that incorporated music, such as Over the Garden Wall and Steven Universe. The cartoons also served as a reference for the game's animations.