Embark on a journey of self-discovery as you build your own home-on-wheels, using a combination of creative block organization puzzles and relaxing interior design. Decorate, organise, and make your heart feel at ease and your camper van feel like home.
Developed by: Malapata Studio
Played on: Steam
Length: 7 hours
A review key was provided by Future Friends.
Camper Van: Make It Home isn’t the first of its kind, not by a long shot, but it tries its best to rise to the challenge. What it presents is a relaxing pivot on the Unpacking-like format with a higher focus on decorating over puzzle gameplay, perfect for players who just want to bring their dream camper van to life, one item at a time. But with its MYR40 price tag and 7-hour runtime, is the game worth picking up? Let’s find out.
The game begins with customising your vehicle, down to deciding the colour scheme of the outside and interior elements, and even the accessory hanging from your rearview mirror. As you progress through the map, you get to do this a few more times as your vehicles change and grow larger over time. The rest of each level involves unpacking items into your camper van, but unlike the more puzzle-heavy titles like Unpacking and Urban Jungle, you only need to unpack the items to pass the level, even if most of them end up on the floor or outside.
The real joy of Camper Van comes from crafting your own aesthetic space. Since you have such limited real estate, there’s no technical right or wrong way to decorate your home-on-wheels. Store your toiletries with your groceries if you like, or create a beautiful mess on your kitchen countertop. The game gives you the freedom to decorate as neatly or as chaotically as you want without any drawbacks, and even has a fairly in-depth camera mode for those who want to document their finished design.
Once in a while, the game does throw its player a challenge in the form of space management. When your base vehicle remains the same between levels, you might find that your decorations from the previous level have carried forward to the next. The challenge of rearranging your belongings to make room for more is a welcome one in this otherwise relaxed game. There’s even a subtle narrative infused here, as you learn more about our protagonist through the items that follow them from level to level.
While Camper Van boasts a decent number of levels covering a variety of seasons and landscapes, there are some obvious and understandable limits to how much the interior of a camper van can change. This leads to some fatigue in the earlier levels, where each vehicle interior feels virtually the same as the previous, except for some minor changes to cupboard and drawer placements.
But what ended up crippling my experience with Camper Van was its unintuitive camera controls. The game doesn’t follow the standard camera controls from similar titles, and there are no options to change the key bindings to something more comfortable. Adding onto that, certain object snapping can be sensitive to camera angles, and I often found myself frustrated by an object not stacking or snapping into place simply because my camera was slightly off-angle.
That being said, I can still see the appeal of Camper Van to specific kinds of gamers. Those who love aesthetics and decorating could definitely sink hours into curating the perfect mobile home, especially with the freedom to decorate both indoors and outdoors. But for those who are looking for a slightly more narrative- or puzzle-heavy experience might want to give this a skip. And if you’re in between, you can always give the demo a whirl.
Verdict: Aesthetics Over Gameplay
Camper Van: Make It Home isn’t the first of its kind, not by a long shot, but it tries its best to rise to the challenge. What it presents is a relaxing pivot on the Unpacking-like format with a higher focus on decorating over puzzle gameplay. While our experience was ultimately marred by unintuitive camera controls, the game still scratches the itch for anyone looking to sink hours into decorating.
Wishlist or buy Camper Van: Make It Home on Steam, and top up your Steam Wallet on Codashop to earn bonus rewards.
