There are games that grab you with guns, drama, or a never-ending skill tree. And then there’s The Wandering Village — a cozy survival builder where the real action is whether your mushroom farm survives the next poisonous desert.
I’ve spent the past week on the back of a creature called Onbu, a gentle, lumbering colossus who is both our ride and our landlord. Imagine Banished, Frostpunk, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind had a weird, plant-infested baby. That’s the vibe.
A peaceful apocalypse
The game opens in a dead world, where your only hope is to ride a mythological beast across the wasteland. You build a village on its back, manage your people, grow food, purify poison, and try not to turn into the kind of parasite that pokes its host for rocks.
I’m not joking. One of your mid-game options is to literally saw off Onbu’s back spikes for stone. You can do it. But should you? That’s where the game shines.
It makes you question your survival tactics. Do you treat Onbu like a partner — healing, feeding, bonding — or like a resource to strip mine? Feed it with a trebuchet, give it laxatives when needed, and it’ll (mostly) listen. Abuse it and it will ignore you. Or worse, lie down in the middle of a toxic swamp just to spite you.
Strategy meets strange
Three layers define gameplay:
- The village on Onbu’s back, where you place your buildings
- Onbu itself, where you manage its health, hunger, and mood
- The overworld map, where you send scouts for loot and route choices
This loop is satisfying, especially early on. Watching your people learn how to survive in new biomes is rewarding. Like, real talk: the first time I survived a poison storm while juggling 30 villagers and feeding Onbu shroom-balls from a siege weapon? Peak indie builder bliss.
But the mid-to-late game? A bit grindy. Once your resource chain stabilizes, it becomes a juggling act of food micromanagement. Assigning workers to wells, pulling them off beet farms, rotating crops based on the biome… it’s like being a very polite apocalypse HR manager.
Art, charm, and fart gas
The 2D art is charming. Onbu’s animations — blinking slowly, sniffling, wagging its tail — make it feel alive. That matters, because you’re meant to care. Watching it nap while your villagers scurry around farming corn? Therapeutic.
Still, the top-down view is locked. You can’t rotate buildings, which makes city planning a little claustrophobic. I often found myself deleting buildings just to realign them, like a neat freak trying to feng shui a moving turtle.
There’s also poop. A lot of poop. Onbu’s waste is a resource, and yes, you can tech into industrial-grade fertilizer. You’ll get notifications like:
The story mode nobody asked for
Let’s talk campaign. I tried it so you don’t have to.
It’s… there. Characters are forgettable, dialogue is oddly childish — until it suddenly isn’t. One mission hit me with a morality bomb about euthanasia, completely out of nowhere. And then back to fungus harvesting. Tonal whiplash much?
It feels like the devs weren’t sure if they wanted a cozy sim or a philosophical novella. I’d skip the campaign entirely unless you really want that unlockable pink skin for Onbu.
The builder bit
Despite the premise, The Wandering Village is a fairly standard city builder under the hood. You’ve got your food chain, tech tree, resource balancing. Nothing groundbreaking, but solid.
Compared to games like Against the Storm or Frostpunk, Wandering Village trades complexity for atmosphere. It’s less stressful, more meditative. Less frostbite, more fungus.
Final thoughts
After a few days on Onbu’s back, I feel… oddly calm.
The game isn’t perfect. The UI could use polish, and late-game pacing drags. But the central mechanic — managing a moving village on a living creature — is compelling and memorable.
I’d recommend it to:
- Fans of chill survival sims
- Players tired of combat in their builders
- Anyone who thinks “trebuchet-fed dinosaur” sounds like a fun Tuesday
Would I return? Yes. But only on the harder difficulties, where choices matter more.
The Wandering Village: It's a good game. Just remember: feed your beast, don’t saw off too many spikes, and always collect the poop. – Tom Henry
Just remember: feed your beast, don’t saw off too many spikes, and always collect the poop.
Pros
✅ Unique setting and concept
✅ Beautiful, cozy visuals
✅ Works great on Steam Deck
✅ Good replayability in sandbox/challenge modes
Cons
❌ Awkward campaign
❌ Micromanagement fatigue in late-game
❌ Limited build freedom due to static camera
