Camp Canyonwood (PC) Preview

It is hard to not view Camp Canyonwood as an obvious homage or clone to Animal Crossing. Every character is a fat bird that waddles around the camp doing things from chopping wood to sleeping. It is very similar in its sandbox style in that there is only a rough end goal presented to the player and mostly a sandbox experience to play in. Players have the objective of trying to bring the camp back to its former glory, mostly through interacting with the various kids that come to the camp.

The graphics are definitely unique, and for the most part they work, with the exception that the characters bounce a little too fast and feel chaotic. Adding to this is the fact everything is controlled by the keyboard/WASD, and many of the tasks require at least some degree of precision, which is frustrating when dealing with the characters' odd speed and control issues.

Gameplay falls into the general loop of walking around doing tasks, gathering resources and using them to buy or do different things, all the while trying to level up the kids that follow you around. What this means in practice is something that looks more like slave labour of having the kids mine rocks all day or chop wood down for you. It's kind of funny, but also kind of dark if you think about it too much.

As the counsellor, you are supposed to guide them to learn things and watch out for their various stats, like energy and boredom. Often this feels like herding cats as they go running off and you have to track them down. This leads to a current weakness in the controls as the character does not handle that well, and the lack of a mouse really comes into play when trying to assign a kid to mine some rocks keeps accidentally switching to somebody else.

Camp Canyonwood will be liked most by fans of light simulation games that have a bit of strategy/RPG elements to them, but mostly are interested in a sandbox experience. From the graphics to the talking and story, this is a whimsical game - and that should guide someone's interest in it.