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Indie Game Spotlight: Wandersong

We are back! This week’s Indie Game Spotlight is sure to make your heart sing. We’re talking Wandersong, a musical adventure game about singing and friendship and trying to save the world even when you’re a nobody! You play as a bard and make music to help people and solve puzzles.

We spoke with Greg Lobanov, creator and director of Wandersong, about the game’s inspirations, the power of music, and your awesome fan art!

Where did you find your inspiration behind the game?

Before making the game, I lived on my bicycle for 5 months and rode across America. That weird adventure and all the stories that came from it loosely inspired this game. Also, I just really love singing and think it’s super fun, even though I’m bad at it. The idea for this game first came to be when I was singing along to Kesha in a car.

Wandersong has a big emphasis on music. Where did this come from?

At the outset, I was curious if I could make a game controller into a musical instrument, and what kind of game could come from that. As I developed the idea, I found that it was a really powerful and expressive way to play a game, and I got very inspired to build the story around that. People’s experience of music is very personal and emotional…Music is a powerful way to communicate, and I think because of its abstract nature it sometimes feels close to expressing “pure” emotion in a way that nothing else does. Putting that in a player’s hands, and making a story about a character who uses that to communicate with the world just felt very special. In conclusion: music is great!

What was your biggest struggle you faced when creating Wandersong?

My aim with Wandersong was to make something that was optimistic, but also honest. Sometimes, finding that line was really hard for me, especially as the world around me seemed to get darker and more difficult for myself and the people around me. How can you look at all the hardship in the world say there’s something to be happy about? That struggle ended up defining the game’s story, and my experience making it. I’m grateful that I had this game… for me it was a way to filter my experience of the world, to keep finding reasons to hold onto hope.

Do you have any cool stories about the Wandersong community on Tumblr?

After the game came out, some of our most amazing fan art came from Tumblr! It means so much to me to see players who really connect with the game that way.

Want to get into Wandersong? It’s available now on Steam, GOG, Humble and itch.io for PC and Mac. It’s also on Nintendo Switch and Playstation4! And make sure to follow the official @wandersong Tumblr!