Review: Karawan

Karawan is a small, free indie game that came out of this year’s Ludum Dare jam. Turn by turn, you guide a growing caravan through a world that is rapidly falling apart, to a portal that will take you to safety.

To make it, you have to carefully plot your path and pay attention to the resources you can gather along the way. If you don’t, you are likely to run out of food, or you may find yourself on a tile that’s about to disintegrate.

As you traverse the map, you can visit various villages, where you can recruit caravan members with different skills: farmers who will harvest berries, woodcutters who will chop down forests, and miners who will collect gemstones.

The first map, Gaia, is fairly straightforward, but you will likely still take a few tries before you make it to safety. (Credit: bippinbits. Fair use.)

You can also choose to raid villages for resources instead. Some of them are protected by a wizard (called a magus), whom you can recruit. The magus is quite powerful, and can even alter the terrain around you.

The game’s stylish pixel art, sparse but evocative descriptions, and the slow, slightly eerie music all draw you in. Don’t let the game’s chill tone fool you: seeing the world disappear behind you will quickly create a sense of urgency for your journey. Karawan may hook you for at least 30-60 minutes, longer if you want to beat all maps. I recommend downloading the slightly improved PostJam version.

The game was made with the open source Godot Engine, and is available for Windows and Linux.