Wanderstop: challenging the cosy escapist fantasies of burnt-out workers

Running a tea shop in the woods doesn't help arena fighter Alta to escape her trauma. Designers Davey Wreden and Karla Zimonja explain how this cosy dream-fulfilment fantasy turned into something much more meta

At first, Wanderstop appears to tap into the same restless urge as many other cosy games: the wish to leave our stressful lives behind and escape to an anonymous wilderness. The game opens with you taking an assistant job in a woodland tea shop, where you spend your days cleaning, tending the garden, and researching the perfect tea blend to satisfy the needs of visiting customers. Scratch a little deeper, though, and you find a game tearing at the hollow rewards of the escapist fantasy.

The bucolic setting is born out of an image game designer Davey Wreden became fixated on in the months after the release of 2015's The Beginner's Guide. His mind would repeatedly wander to a daydream of going to a tea shop in the woods and lying on a bench by the water. He sketched variations of the scene for months before deciding to make it as his next game.