With a tea-making fantasy game, Davey Wreden gets real

Davey Wreden does not tend to make conventional games. He exploded onto the indie scene in 2013 with The Stanley Parable, a choose-your-own adventure story set in a workplace hall of mirrors. Its follow-up, 2015’s The Beginner’s Guide was a tour through a series of games created by an untraceable hobbyist developer. Both are undeniably trippy, metafictional titles. Now, after a decade of experimentation and subsequent burnout, comes Wanderstop, a game that dials back the impish impulses that defined the earlier works for something more emotionally upfront. Wanderstop takes place in an almost impossibly quaint forest clearing. A tea shop sits at the center of this small, ostensibly perfect world where guests arrive in search of a soothing brew. Playing as Alta, a professional fighter on a career-decimating losing streak, it’s your job to make tea while tending to her recovery. Alta is handed a basket to collect tea leaves, shears to cut unruly weeds, and a watering can to tend to plant ... Read full article.