Go to the game's main page
Review
A world where a wooden log becomes an impassable barrier. The stump of a tree a house for three families. A small corner of a field a land in need of patrolling wardens.
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids completely mesmerised me when I was but a wee boy and saw it on the big screen. Later, when I saw The Borrowers on television, I felt that same magic again, this time enhanced by a more fine-tuned critical eye (I think I was 17 when I first saw it) befitting a more nuanced and layered film. And of course The Bromeliad by Terry Pratchett gave me many hours of enchanted reading pleasure.
I love how stories about little folk view the whole world that I think I know so well from a completely different, yet oh so familiar perspective. A new and fresh and surprising take on all the banalities and for-granteds of everyday life.
Warden fits right in with these stories, and it’s a lot closer to The Bromeliad end of the spectrum than it is to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids !
We follow the protagonist after she comes back from a surveillance mission. Rumours about some kind of intruder at the edge of the field create a lingering background tension, even as our protagonist’s immediate focus is food. She’s starved after such a long and exhausting mission.
What follows is almost a slice-of-life episode. Engage in a bit of banter with the neighbours while also asking about more pressing matters, look for some truly filling food (more than those few measly pickles), go admire the sap-reducing kiln made out of a flowerpot "borrowed from the big-uns,…
Practically a leisurely day out and about… But always, everywhere, the unshakable feeling that something is off…
Until you find the first hard evidence that something is very much off indeed…
During your investigation into the causes of this disturbance in your normally calm and peaceful corner of the field (except for the occasional wasp or badger, but your people have their ways to get rid of those…), there are obstacles to get around or across or over. Mostly in a typical text-adventure manner, but always with that bit of extra imaginative giddiness of being a miniature bugfolk in a world of giant pumpkins and huge looming berry-bushes.
The story slowly unfolds, and it’s a pleasure to keep guessing about the nature of the threat that is creeping up between the lines of the narrative as much as it is showing itself more and more in bits and pieces of evidence around your corner of the field.
I loved this game.
