Wall Town Wonders

Wall Town Wonders is one of those confounding games that I am almost loathe to review, because I don't want to scare anyone off of it. This is a game full of delights and surprises, brimming over the edge with an immediate charm that will bring a smile to the face of anyone with a heartbeat. The very concept is one of such jaw-dropping creativity and audacity that when I first saw screenshots, I couldn't believe the creativity displayed when developer Cyborn came up with the concept, while being simultaneously flabbergasted that no one else has thought to pursue the same idea. Wall Town Wonders is wildly fun, with mixed reality production values that have to be seen to be believed.

And yet Wall Town Wonders is also one of the buggiest mixed reality titles I've played. In the review build, I constantly struggled to get button presses to register. I've had many issues with the game's interface simply not acknowledging that I was attempting to interact with it. And some of the game's minigames are obtuse to the point of unplayability; I have no idea what Wall Town Wonders wants me to do, and the game doesn't seem terribly interested in telling me. There is an element of "figure it out" at play here that may be a purposeful gameplay mechanic, but it is so extreme that it feels a bit neglectful. So yes, a tale of two games, simultaneously both entrancingly fun and wildly frustrating.

Wall Town Wonders has a great and simple premise. A town of tiny humans has taken up residence in the walls of your home. A slightly steampunk-ish version of the Borrowers, the tiny humans that inhabit the town measure maybe two inches at the most. They first make themselves known with one simple building that juts out of your wall (wherever you decide to put it), but before long, you'll be adding another and another, until your entire room is slathered with structures.

Most of the buildings come with new inhabitants for your town, little people that interact with their surroundings and each other in surprising and often delightful ways. These people are rendered with a surprising amount of detail, and the animation - possibly motion captured - is astoundingly good. These folks think nothing of leaving their little town to go on adventures around your room, using a variety of vehicles or even hopping onto your controller for a quick ride. 

You can guide some of the vehicles around with a gentle tap.

Each building is a miracle of graphic design, fully three dimensional, with an interior that seems to go back into the studs of your walls. You can peek through the little windows and see people working in shops. Folks come out onto porches to socialize and read newspapers. A little hot air balloon wafts across the room to deliver new inhabitants (you can gently guide it with your hand). Veterans of town-planning games will quickly catch onto the drill here; some of the buildings produce materials, which can then be used to build and upgrade other buildings, which are required to build still more buildings, which in turn produce new materials. And so on and so on. 

I strongly recommend finding the emptiest room in your house to play this game; spartan walls and a lack of obstacles are keys to success. As the little inhabitants of your town request first a farm, and then a restaurant, and then a workshop, you'll be taking up more and more real estate; the less wall hangings you have in the way, the better off you'll be. The buildings measure anywhere from maybe 15 virtual inches to around four feet wide, and the game has very specific ideas about where they can go in proximity to each other. I played in my office, and was constantly dodging around my desk to reach stuff behind it. I also found myself crawling on the floor, getting a stool to stand on to see into buildings that I put too high, and climbing onto my sofa to capture wayward butterflies. This is a full-room experience.

Pictured above: failed diver with Tweety Bird stars circling her head

Most new buildings you add come with their own little minigames, which either reward you with materials (money, food, wood, bricks, etc.) or "wonder", which can be used to make cosmetic changes to your buildings and characters. And some of the buildings simply produce and deliver materials on their own, though the cadence as which they do so is somewhat mysterious. I found myself struggling to understand the flow of how to advance the game at times; though it isn't necessarily an Animal Crossing-style game that you need to check in on every day, I did fall into a pattern where I would play for an hour or so, then put the game away until the next day. Then I would come back, knowing that I would have enough materials accrued to make the next big push forward. 

Part of the reason I adopted this "checking in" style of play was that I had a lot of difficulty with Wall Town Wonders' minigames, which are the primary way to gather materials outside of simply letting time go by. The games are clever and varied, but many are completely bewildering the first time you experience them. Take the diving minigame, for example. At a certain point, the player gains access to the "lagoon", which is a cute little lake that appears on your floor. Swimmers hang out at this lake (you can also fish for food), and you can initiate a diving game. Divers take a little elevator to the top of a diving board, and then they stand there. And stand there. And stand there. And Wall Town Wonders doesn't tell you what to do. So eventually you tap a button to see if something will happen. And the divers jump up in the air, and come down, head smacking the diving board. Then they get back up and stand there some more. 

Through experimentation, I discovered that you need to hold the button down to make the diver run forward, then release it when the diver is between two barely perceptible lines on the board. Then the diver will perform a beautiful dive into the lake, and three little homies in a row boat will hold up scores. It is all very cute once you've figured it out. And that's how pretty much every activity in the game is. You initiate it, something starts happening, and then you have this panicked "What do I do?" moment. Then you fumble around for a while and figure it out. Sometimes that process is quick. Sometimes it takes a half hour. It never feels great.

I also had problems with other, more basic interactions. Wall Town Wonders displays little icons when an activity is available. You are supposed to point a cursor at them and click the "A" button to activate them. This works about half the time. Same thing with collecting materials. Same thing with talking to the little people in your town. It just doesn't work half the time. 

This constant struggle to interact with Wall Town Wonders is frustrating as hell, because there is a ton to love about this game. I've been sending screenshots to the Gaming Nexus gang for weeks and listening to them salivate over getting their hands on Wall Town Wonders. It is an amazing sight to behold, and when it works, it's one of the greatest VR and mixed reality experiences I've had. There are constant surprises and delights built into the fabric of this experience; it just needs to get out of it's own way so players can experience them. I'm hoping that some quick patch work will smooth out the rough edges here, because this game is just too amazing to let it fall down the "it's to broke to play" cracks that gobble up so many VR experiences. 

I normally shy away from explanations of how I arrive at a score, as I feel that such yammering is pretty navel-gazey. But in this case I feel it is warranted. In terms of design, concept, and sheer cleverness, I would give this game a 10/10. However, functionality-wise, I'm afraid I'm down in the 4 - 5 range, as the gameplay really is pretty broken. So I decided to land in the middle and give it a 7. That said, Wall Town Wonders is likely the most delightful "7" you will ever play. 

(Editor's note: Gaming Nexus' review policy is to "review the game we have in hand". But in the interest of fairness, we share the following: Prior to publication, developer Cyborn announced that an incoming patch would address some of the technical issues we experienced during our review period. The developer is actively working on gameplay improvements, which should always be a consideration when making a purchase decision.)