A Thousand Tiny Touches: Wandersong and the Major Arcana
Wandersong (Greg Lobanov, 2018) is a game of cosmic circumstances on a humble scale. It deals with questions of archetypes, destiny, an understanding of the self, and how our actions shape the world around us. It is a game that begs to be read as analogous to the hopeless pessimism that permeates modern life as well as a commentary on the tropes games so consistently employ, using our familiarity with both these elements to subvert the traditional hero’s journey.
In resurfacing many foundational narrative archetypes, Wandersong led me to interpreting the game not through modern storytelling expectations but with the aid of a tarot deck. In particular, I wanted to understand how Wandersong’s themes would map to the 22 major arcana, a series of cards which each symbolize a foundational aspect of the human experience.
Though many still associate tarot cards with new-age mysticism and fortune telling, a growing number of people have begun using them as tools for writing and literary analysis. In their article “Tarot Reading as Recombinant Narrative: Literature as Game/Game as Literature,” English professor Donald Palumbo writes that “the Tarot deck is a marvelously intricate and finely tooled mechanism for generating innumerable, remarkably coherent stories…”
Carrying centuries of cultural history and meaning, each tarot card acts as an invitation for the reader to contextualize the card within their life and view events as a reflection of larger cycles. Though tarot cards have been used marginally in video games outside the Persona series, the table-top space has seen a burgeoning of games which utilize the deck as the primary mechanic - most notably the work of Jamila R. Nedjadi with Sword Queen Games. Their games frequently employ tarot cards as generative prompts for the player, such as We War Crossed Lovers which explores the relationship between antagonistic characters by asking the player to draw cards to understand what they really want, or REINCARNATION REDUX which has each card representing a forgotten memory.
Utilizing tarot cards as prompts for introspection provides an accessible path for reflection to those less comfortable with deep, soul-searching journaling. They also open up new ways of viewing familiar scenarios by positioning them within the larger human experience. They are an imperfect tool - some cards are so open-ended as to invite bad faith interpretations - but despite their age I feel we are only beginning to understand how valuable tarot decks can be for interpreting a wide range of art and experience.
Wandersong may not reference tarot cards directly, but its thematic questions are such that they map almost too well to be purely circumstantial. Whether you believe tarot cards hold any spiritual power or are merely a useful tool for introspection, I hope this analysis helps you appreciate how cleverly Wandersong employs and subverts archetypes that have existed for generations, and, more broadly, how tarot cards can be used to explore narrative and the act of interpretation.
Mega spoilers to follow. Also, it’s worth mentioning I’m in no way an expert on tarot card interpretation, but have attempted to use a range of sources to influence my reading. I have included these at the bottom of the article.
The Fool // 0
Wandersong opens in a dream. A young bard clutches a giant sword, attempting to heave it overhead. Yet, they quickly realizing they lack the physical strength for this role. They are a bard, not a fighter, so quickly the sword is discarded and they begin, instead, to sing.
Wandersong’s hook initially feels simple and easy to communicate. Instead of swords and spells, the protagonist solves problems with song, harmonizing with ghosts to resolve a spirit invasion and creating unity, not through acts of violence but the power of song. It’s a whimsical twist on a played-out genre, but Wandersong is quick to illustrate that it is playing with more than a mechanical novelty.
In a standard tarot deck, The Fool is card number 0. It represents curiosity, new beginnings, and a child-like naivety. Wandersong’s bard possesses all of these in their fearless optimism and desire to explore and help others. But the flip side of The Fool is ignorance, gullibility, and shallowness. As early as the bard’s initial dream, questions arise as to their ability to succeed in their quest to unite the world and stave off the apocalypse. As they are reminded time and time again, how much can a song do to change the fate of the universe?
It is easy to disregard the bard as a fool. They accept others wholeheartedly, plow headfirst into danger, and are embarking upon a quest to bring a divided world into harmony. It seems impossible they could succeed. And yet, how can we not secretly hope that they do? The Fool is a card of innocence, of believing in the impossible before we learn to expect the worst. The bard is not a child, but they have somehow rejected the pessimism so common to adulthood, and for that, it is hard not to envy them.
The Magician // 1
The bard may be optimistic but they still lack much of the knowledge which will allow them to obtain the Earthsong - a spiritual song embodying all of creation - and stop the world from ending. Along with them to help is Miriam, a witch who knows about the Earthsong and the Overseers - spirits which control different elements within the universe, and whose deaths signal its end.
She is immediately more powerful than the bard, wielding explosive magic and vast knowledge of potions and the spirit realm. She can also fly (with a broom, but still). Despite all of this, Miriam doubts herself and the journey at large. She is quick to anger if the bard takes a detour to help others, pragmatically reasoning that if the world ends it won’t matter if one town is a little happier. She is the cold rationality to the bard’s joyful optimism.
The Magician card recognizes our connection to the broader universe. It sees magic and those who wield it not as occult figures but people who have gained an appreciation for and a connection with elements others ignore or take for granted. It governs creativity, but also the fear that comes from knowing we have the power (and by extension the responsibility) to shape our destiny.
Miriam may be more powerful than the bard but she doubts herself and is unable to see how the world is connected. She holds a magical power but does not see individual people as similarly important. Small acts can lead to big change, and it is only through faith in ourselves and others that we can heal the pain we cause every day. The Magician is not a card calling for forgiveness or the optimism of The Fool, but it recognizes that magic is both tangible and ethereal. We have to love ourselves and appreciate our value before we can see the world as something worth saving.
The High Priestess // 2
Before the bard learns the world is in danger, they meet the messenger of its destruction, Eyala. Eyala is the assistant of the god Eya who watches over the universe and has set in motion the cycle of death and rebirth which is now beginning again. Of all the characters in Wandersong, Eyala knows the most about what is going on. But like many authority figures, she doesn’t think its worthwhile or appropriate to share this information with the bard.
This is not out of any particular malice. Eyala would love to see the world saved and takes a particular liking to the bard, giving them the adorable nickname “lil b.” But still, she has seen this all before. For as much as the bard protests giving in to the end, Eyala has watched thousands of world die and sees it as almost cruel to lead the bard to believe they can avoid a similar fate. She is kind, but in the way of an overprotective parent unable to see their child as capable of grasping the gravity of their circumstances.
In many ways The High Priestess is a companion card to The Magician, trading its power for a loftier knowledge while sharing a necessity for unity and compassion. Where it diverges furthest is in the subject of that unity, focusing not outward but towards the self, knowing that it is often harder to care for ourselves than those around us.
Though Miriam suffers from isolation and overwhelming doubts about other people, halfway through the game the bard has their sense of self shattered when they discover that someone else - the true “hero” - is also searching for the overseers with Eyala’s aid. The bard is forced to face the reality of their quest, and the fact that despite everything, they aren’t the hero, just a bard.
The most perpetually joyful character in the game, the bard sinks into a deep depression, sleeping away days on park benches and slogging through shifts at their hometown factory. They don’t know who they are anymore, and that insecurity makes it impossible to know if they are doing the right thing by continuing this quest everyone says is hopeless. The High Priestess prioritizes self-care and the importance of identity, and by denying them the truth about their quest, Eyala unintentionally set the bard up to have their sense of belonging crumble.
The Empress // 3
One of the most delightful troops the bard encounters on their journey is a pirate crew transporting coffee beans between ports. The crew, lead by Captain Lucas, are extremely close and have maintained their comradery despite their peers' growing worries. They immediately take a liking to the bard, welcoming them onto the ship to share in their pirate songs.
Though he loves his crew, Captain Lucas nurses a longing for the mermaids which once saved his life. Having since disappeared, he has been searching for them for years, but it is only when the bard and Miriam join his crew that they locate the missing mermaids hiding away on a deserted island to the north. As it happens, they didn’t want to be found.
The Empress is commonly associated with motherhood and femininity, but within that meaning is the importance of family. The pirate crew is not family by birth, but as a chosen family they have formed bonds as deep as if they were blood relatives. It is never a question of how much they care for one another, and it is through the strength of their connections that they have persevered despite the calamity.
But with family also comes the danger of forced community. The Empress is caring, but she can also be cruel and controlling. Captain Lucas meant the mermaids no ill will, but he did not stop to consider why they had left before searching them out. They saved his life and to him that connection was unbreakable. The mermaids, however, were tired of humans seeing them as something exotic and wondrous. They wanted to live in peace.
When Captain Lucas learns the truth he becomes despondent. It is hard to lose someone you care for, and it is even harder knowing they left because of you. Eventually, the mermaids decide to let the captain stay, but only on their terms. This is a blunt statement that relationships require communication and mutual respect. It isn’t right to take someone’s agency from them regardless of your intentions. The only way to help others is for them to accept your help first.
The Emperor & The Hierophant // 4 & 5
Wandersong’s core question is “can cycles be broken.” The universe has died and been reborn thousands of times before, but does that mean it is impossible to alter the world’s fate or that nobody has tried? This question also concerns the bard’s role as “not the hero.” Does someone need to be chosen before they can take a stand? Is it a given that the real hero’s actions are just?
Both The Emperor and The Hierophant define tradition and order. For The Emperor, it is an act of just rule. They have lived a long life and though they are strict they are acting from a place of earned authority. For The Hierophant, their adherence to tradition is one of faith. They trust that their god knows the right path forward and defer to their guidance.
Eya (and by proxy Eyala) operate as The Emperor. The universe’s cycle of death and rebirth is a plan she helped orchestrate, and she watchs it unfold as the only resolution she can see to a world that continues to divide itself. The hero - this time a strong woman named Aubrey - is The Hierophant. She has accepted her role as an instrument in the world’s destruction despite knowing it will bring about her death as well.
What Wandersong does so well is demonstrate how someone could arrive at this point of resolution. Aubrey is cocky and brash, but she is never portrayed as evil or misguided. She knows wholly what will happen when she kills the last Overseer, but her identity as the hero prevents her from swaying from her mission. As with the bard and Miriam, Aubrey’s sense of identity determines her path forward.
It is easy to understand the bard’s frustration at Aubrey’s actions, and with her inability to accept there might be another way. But it is also possible to empathize with Aubrey’s determination. We all want desperately to understand what our role is in life and to have a god send their messenger to tell you yours would be difficult to give up. At the same time, Aubrey is too fixated to accept that her identity can change.
That the bard never gives up on her belies their belief that people can change no matter where they come from. Which makes it so frustrating to watch Aubrey continually go back on her promises to stop killing. Aubrey may be the hero, but Wandersong questions if titles have meaning, or if that meaning keeps us from challenging what we’re told we have to do. The bard will never be the hero no matter how much they want to be. But maybe that is what allows them to see this world as something capable of being saved?
The Lovers // 6
As Miriam and the bard approach the final Overseer they travel back through their home village and meet Miriam’s grandmother. She tells the bard that the reason she sent Miriam on this quest was not just to save the world, but also because she knew the bard would accept Miriam. What she wanted most was for Miriam to have a friend, and knowing she now has one regardless of whether the world is saved or lost, fills her with hope.
It is not said often enough how difficult it can be to let someone love you when you are not used to being loved. Miriam has never had friends. Part of this could be that she is cold and easily frustrated with others, but it is equally likely that her persona only developed through isolation. Her parents left her, the townsfolk see her as a witch not to be trusted. Only her grandmother accepts her until the bard comes and they start this very long journey.
Those new to tarot cards often see The Lovers as one of the most straightforward cards, depicting two people entwined often with sexual connotations. But despite its appearance and name, The Lovers does not strictly refer to romantic love but all relationships platonic or otherwise. It is among the most human and earnest of the major arcana, representing the value of friendship and the need for both sides to nurture it.
Late into the game, the bard meets up with an old band to see them play in a ritzy night club. As they strut onto the dance floor they stumble upon Miriam performing an almost trance-like dance. The city they are in is inhabited almost entirely by witches, yet Miriam is feeling more alone they ever. She’s questioning who she is and why she’s here. So, she dances. She pulls away from her stoic pessimism and emulates the only one that believes in her unequivocally: the bard.
There are never romantic undertones to the bard and Miriam’s relationship and that is part of what makes it so wonderful. It is rare to watch deep friendships develop in any medium, most of all games, and Wandersong never defies a character to force a relationship to happen. Instead, Miriam and the bard become friends for simple, extremely relatable reasons. The bard believes in Miriam when she doesn’t believe in herself. Miriam respects the bard despite his often silly nature. They become friends through circumstance, yes, but they stay friends because they’ve allowed themselves to become vulnerable.
Being vulnerable is terrifying, but it is the most necessary step to develop a relationship. It is hard to find someone who will stick by you when you are most in your feelings - raw, awkward, apathetic. Wandersong believes we should be wary of those that give up on others, and of giving up on ourselves.
The Chariot & Strength // 7 & 8
When Miriam and the bard arrive at the kingdom of Rulle, Aubrey has gotten there first and is receiving a parade of gratitude. The people of Rulle have been at war with the neighboring Chandresh and believe the hero will end the war and the vanquish the monsters which have started to appear at the border. Miriam and the bard slip by without notice.
In almost any other game it would be the player receiving this applause. Having single-handedly defeated swarms of monsters while on a quest to liberate the universe from its dying deities, this would be the point at which the player gets to bask in their greatness. They did it. Them. Just the one.
Video games are obsessed with hero narratives because they present easy framing devices and assure player significance. It is a lot harder to make the player care if they are just another bystander. Everyone wants to feel important, and games often use this desire as the driving force of their narratives. This is not inherently bad, but it is rare to see this cliché interrogated for how it alienates us from other people.
The Chariot is a card that pushes forward. It symbolizes dogmatic determination and a drive to finish what’s been started. Strength similarly calls upon our capability and sturdiness. But there is a tension between the cards. Where The Chariot views all progress as valuable, Strength requires humility to truly appreciate the power of an individual.
It is fun to play the hero, but by being the most important person in every room it can be hard to imagine others as “on our level.” Of course, we should receive a warm welcome in every town, we’re the ones saving the planet! But rarely are things so simple. The hero wields the sword, but what about the person who made it? Or those who taught the hero to wield it, who fed and housed them, fought alongside them?
Aubrey is beloved by everyone as the hero, but she is also alone. All she has is her title, which is why it is so hard for her to even consider ending her quest. To her, being the hero is everything and the bard is just getting in the way. By casting Aubrey as a pseudo-antagonist, Wandersong wants to interrogate what it means to be the lone savior. After all, aren’t divisions what is causing the world to end? Every action the bard takes is to bring others together. They may be a conduit for getting others to act, but ultimately they are only a spark to start the fireworks.
We want desperately to believe that if just the right person were to exist and be given the chance they could change history for the better. But time and again this has only sidelined the problem or made things worse. We cannot rely on saviors to solve problems that affect everyone. We’re a part of this, so we’re also a part of the solution.
The Hermit & The Wheel // 9 & 10
Broken worlds are not new to video games. Whether it is the destruction of planets in Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo, 2007), the civil war at the heart of Skyrim (Bethesda, 2011), or the fracturing of alien races in Mass Effect (Bioware, 2007), the necessity for the player to repair a torn landscape is a convenient trope to journey to the ends of the world. Wandersong shares this premise, but the framing highlights something not commonly considered in similar stories: that the dysfunction between people is itself causing the universe to deteriorate.
Wandersong encompasses a lot of small stories and, in the grand scope of things, disagreements of limited consequence. But it never treats these problems as insignificant. Every person and their ability to love their community affects the universe’s stability. What might seem like a small act - bringing a family back together, liberating a town from grueling work conditions - has much broader implications as it grows the world’s collective empathy.
The Hermit and The Wheel are complementary and antagonistic cards, as the former implies a rejection of society, and the latter, the continual movement of said society regardless of our engagement. The Hermit compels introspection and calls attention to our individuality, while The Wheel reinforces the fact that we are just one part of a much larger universe, but a part of it nonetheless.
In Wandersong, The Wheel is broken. Divisiveness has jammed the gears and the world has begun to rend itself in two. Everyone has taken The Hermit’s path but have done so without the skill or self-awareness to do so safely. The world is depressed, isolated, and unable to see a way out of its misery without destroying the whole thing.
The bard cannot save everyone, but they can help the people around them. The core message of Wandersong is that every action matters. Every person is connected and a simple act of kindness and empathy can make a difference far beyond one life.
When the bard and Miriam arrive at Delphi the town is suffering an overwhelming depression. The town is dying, both physically and economically, and nobody knows how to stop it. The only one who seems to want to try is Manny, a drummer trying to put a band together to play one big show he hopes will pull the town out of its slump. But it’s not as easy as asking people to join up.
Ash, who plays the accordion, is grieving the death of their mother. They came back in the hopes of playing one final duet with their mom, only to discover they were too late. Before they can help the town heal, they have to heal themselves. The bard is capable of acting as a conduit between the spirit and physical realms, but it’s Ash that does the healing. They get closure and, recognizing how much the bard’s intervention helped them, decide to try to do the same for the town.
Disenfranchisement is rarely a conscious decision yet it can be almost impossible to break out of once we succumb to the idea the world doesn’t care about us. Wandersong defiantly fights against this belief, realizing that it can be hard to change the world, but we have the power to change a single life. It is purely humanist and optimistic without ever dipping into the saccharine. It knows what it’s asking is hard, but it knows it’s a challenge worth taking.
Justice // 11
A constant motif of Wandersong is the tension between forgiveness and retribution. Miriam and Aubrey often approach moments of friction with violence, recognizing that they can quite easily overpower those in their path and believing themselves justified in doing so. It can be extremely compelling when someone is needlessly blocking your path to blow them out of the way with magic. But the bard doesn’t want this to happen.
It is tempting to distill the bard’s philosophy towards justice as “everyone deserves a second chance,” but it’s much more nuanced than that. The bard gets angry, they recognize that some people are putting their interests ahead of the world. But they never let themselves lose faith in people.
Justice is a card frequently associated with balance and fairness, which tracts with how most people conceive of justice. We want our actions to be rewarded, and evil to be punished. But what this interpretation of Justice lacks is room for another option: forgiveness. Growing up in the US’s dominant Christian culture, I became desensitized to the idea of loving your neighbor and forgiving even the worse crimes.
Wandersong reframes this belief as not one of giving in but moving forward. It knows that revenge can feel good but doesn’t resolve the issue. We will still hold on to the issue even if we get some immediate satisfaction from giving someone what they had coming. Late in the game, the bard and Aubrey are trapped in a cave and believe themselves to be dead. Stripped of their supernatural significance, the bard and Aubrey share a moment of intimacy and are finally able to talk to each other as just people.
The bard is justifiably frustrated with Aubrey but he hasn’t given up hope she can change. Aubrey is determined to see her quest through, but she’s also scared. She’s giving up everything to bring the universe back into balance, but she knows it will kill her in the process. When a way out emerges, the bard offers Aubrey the chance to come with them but only if she promises to be good. It is the most demanding the bard ever becomes and it is a radical thing they’re asking from the person who has dogged them every step of the way.
We as players know Aubrey will go back on her promise. We don’t expect her to change so easily. But for just a moment we can see how fully the bard believes that everyone is capable of doing good. Their earnestness is not based on any religion or personal gain. They simply have to believe that everyone is worthy of love because otherwise why are they trying so hard to save them?
Wandersong wants us to reconsider the idea that forgiveness is letting people off the hook. Instead, it represents a radical faith in the power for everyone to change. Perhaps it is naïve to think so, but if we do not believe in people, what else do we have?
The Hanged Man // 12
The first Overseer the bard meets is the Dream King. A sleepy cat dressed in a robe and crown, the Dream King shows zero interest in the bard’s desire to learn the Earthsong. Instead, he slips away to another castle, leaving the bard confused and immediately unable to learn the whole of the song which will halt the universe’s collapse.
The Dream King is one of Wandersong’s most inscrutable characters, occupied solely with prolonging his existence but knowing he will eventually have to die. When the bard catches up to the Dream King again, they plead with him to give up his song so the universe can be saved. But to the end, the Dream King refuses, ultimately dying at the hands of Aubrey and taking his song with them.
This scene is a remarkable demonstration of the fruitlessness of apolitical self-preservation. The Dream King just wants to keep living, but his is inseparably tied to the universe. Refusing to make a choice only heightens his importance in what will unfold, but this reality is too terrifying for the Dream King to accept. So he goes to sleep and hopes no one can find him.
The Hanged Man is one of the most uncomfortable cards to draw in a reading, as it requires the sacrifice of letting go. It is a hopeful card, but only in the context that something will be lost and so will our ability to control the outcome. The Hanged Man represents a surrendering of our fate and acceptance of our smallness.
The Dream King cannot escape his death, but still, he pushes it out of mind. To him, the outcome is the same - he will die, and so what does it matter if the universe survives him. The Hanged Man reminds us that we are but one part of a larger story. That sacrifice is painful but can lead to good far beyond our existence. It requires a great humility that is easy to critique in others but much harder to conjure ourselves.
The Dream King cannot embody The Hanged Man, and so his legacy is one of obstruction, failure, and selfishness. His choice is understandable, but that doesn’t make it right.
Death // 13
The universe of Wandersong is dying, but it is never described as ending. Whatever the bard’s outcome, life will continue. This distinction complicates the usual narrative of a complete apocalypse. The bard is fighting for another chance for everyone, but to do so the current world will in some way have to die. Whether it is a death of the culture of division or the current universe entirely, depends on the world’s ability to undo its own mistakes.
Death shares many similarities with The Hanged Man but broadens the scope of the card from the individual to the cumulative. It is not as simple as the physical death of a person, but similar to The Wheel represents the constant cycles present in life. Death highlights the conclusions we face every day, be they of relationships, ideas, physical life, or immaterial beliefs. Where The Hanged Man shows a subject willingly surrendering to their fate, Death is impartial. It is not something to be reasoned or debated, it simply is.
Aubrey believes that the death of the universe is one of totality. She is unwilling to humor a belief in partial death or that which supersedes the physical. To her, death is natural and her role is to ensure it is as cleanly orchestrated as possible.
The bard recognizes that though death is unavoidable, how we arrive at the point of death and what it means to us can be, if not changed, pushed in a more favorable direction. The Overseers represent this possibility in their decision to give up their songs to the bard. They will cease to exist but will ensure others a better life. They hold the universe together, and their degradation is causing it to fall apart. Their decision to die peacefully instead of being cut down by Aubrey allows them to choose what they leave behind.
Wandersong does not present death as something we can sidestep. Saving the universe does not mean that all who inhabit it will survive. But it does recognize that the point at which we greet death varies wildly, and those who have lived the longest and fullest lives at some point need to accept that they cannot live forever. The current Overseers are expiring, but that does not mean everyone else should follow them into the dark.
Willingly inviting the end and the next generation is a step we must all eventually take, and Wandersong believes this should be a moment of beauty, not something we hide from until it is too late. When an Overseer gives their song to the bard, they are played out by a divine orchestra. Their life is ending, but doing so is a celebration. They will be remembered.
Temperance // 14
I’ve spent several thousand words discussing Wandersong’s themes without explicitly commenting on how it plays. Its mechanics-light design lends itself to narrative-focused readings but ignoring the clever ways the game integrates its most game-y elements would dismiss several of its most effective scenes. Just as its narrative sees the bard traveling across the world to varied people with their own cultures, its design takes bits and bobs from dozens of game genres and weaves them naturally into its thematic quilt.
The vertical city of Chandresh introduces Metroid exploration, while windy mountains focus on environmental platforming. Delphi features several rhythm sections, and the sailing segments of the pirate chapter repurpose these mechanics into more freeform shanty-based adventuring. No single mechanic is very deep, but they are all meaningful and convey something about the bard’s interactions with the people around them. Wandersong mechanizes the natural act of putting on different faces for different people, without losing the core of who the bard is.
Temperance can be interpreted as promoting the middle option; idealized centrism and an aversion to hard statements. A more constructive reading would take the card as signifying clarity and calmness in moments of adversity. It recognizes the natural polarity between humans and the need to consider our interactions when we might prefer to explode. It is not restraint so much as an awareness that our emotions can get away from us, and there is value in taking the time to understand someone else’s view even if you do not come to share it.
It may be a stretch to say that every mechanic in Wandersong is a direct reflection of a character’s culture, but I do think there is a strong correlation between what the game focuses on for each act and the thematic questions it is playing at. If all of Wandersong was rounds of Simon Says with ghosts it would be flat and tedious, and if every act randomly presented a new wrinkle in the game’s design with no connection to the narrative the game could run into feeling disjointed and uncertain.
It is an achievement that Wandersong can balance its many ideas without ever feeling half-formed. Even if our basic verbs remain the same throughout the game - jump, sing, talk, dance - how the game and the player understand these verbs shifts based on the characters they interact with. Dancing in the woods and dancing in the club mean extremely different things, but each has value and shows a unique aspect of the bard without forsaking the other.
If Temperance is a card of balance and reflection, its use in Wandersong is to dispel the idea that a game needs to have one great hook. Games can and should evolve as they progress, but rarely are elements discarded as frequently as they are gained. Wandersong doesn’t bloat itself with features, it develops when it needs to and allows mechanics to slip away when they have served their purpose. Letting go can be hard, but frequently, it is necessary to grow.
The Devil // 15
What does it mean to be the hero? Do their actions make a hero, or are a hero’s actions heroic because of who they are? I do not have answers to these philosophical questions, but Wandersong offers some ideas to play with. For most of the game, the bard is a symbol of positivity and self-assurance. They are playful but not embarrassed, sturdy but never cruel. They embody warmth without ignorance. And yet, they are scared.
The bard wants desperately to be the hero, and they don’t know why. They can see that the true hero, Aubrey, is only causing pain, and yet they envy them. Aubrey has been given the gift of importance. They matter; they were chosen. The bard is just a bard. They stumbled into this and are doing their best, but they’re a nobody.
The Devil has a lot of immediate connotations which I am going to ignore as they have little relevance here. In my readings, The Devil represents holding on to things or ideas which are harmful. It is meant as a wake-up call, a point to reflect on what we value and if those things are healthy. It is a challenging card because it forces us to unravel the parts of ourselves we want most to squirrel away with endless justifications.
When the bard learns they are not the hero it nearly breaks them. They quit their mission, move back in with their mom, and tell Miriam that they’re wasting their time. For a lot of Wandersong’s characters, this is where the story ends. They lose hope and put their faith in beliefs that only placate the pain without resolving it. The bard could have stopped here too.
But they don’t. They never wholly quit wishing they were the hero, but they realize that who they are is a lot more than a title. That this happens as they help dismantle a factory which has been producing Happy Kid dolls emphasizes how true happiness can only come from within. The town of Chistmest is overflowing with Happy Kids and everyone is miserable. Only after they confront the toy's inventor and reclaim their lives from the factory do they begin to experience hope and joy.
But Wandersong is not a simple rejection of materialism. It doesn’t believe that physical items cannot inspire us (Miriam’s broom, for instance, holds immense personal significance to her), but is skeptical of using things as a means of producing happiness. The reason we have such intense attachments to objects is because of the history they imply. Calling something happy or heroic doesn’t make it such. If it was that easy it wouldn’t mean anything.
The Devil asks us to examine ourselves, pick at our scabs and accept what we find inside. Wandersong knows how desirable it is to imagine that that one special thing will be what gives our life purpose, and it knows that’s utter nonsense. It takes work.
The Tower & The Star // 16 & 17
The Tower is the card Wandersong pivots upon. Typically depicted as a tall, harsh structure protruding from a thunderstorm, The Tower signals dramatic change and upheaval. Like Death, it is not a card that can be avoided. Change is coming and we must prepare to meet it.
Aubrey and Eyala recognize this change as signposting the end. The current universe cannot be preserved, it has to make way for the next. This is the most dramatic instance of The Tower: change that is absolute and comprehensive. Aubrey does not want to consider other options because the end will not allow nuance. Better to accept her fate than fight the inevitable.
But the world doesn’t end. When the bard rallies the voices of every person the universe shifts but it doesn’t disappear. Eyala tells the bard that the world they knew is gone, having changed into something recognizable but different. Better. The bard was fighting the end but ushered in a rebirth all the same. Wandersong is willing to admit that the status quo is rarely worth preserving, but that doesn’t mean everything has to die.
As with Death, The Tower encourages openness to what lies ahead. It might be scary but it might also be better. Wandersong rejects nihilism on the principle that it forgoes hope in saving what has already been built. The world the bard enters at the end of the game looks a lot like the one they were in at the start, but something important has changed: people have hope and are willing to work to turn it into something real.
The Star is what happens after The Tower falls. Reemerging after a dramatic shift, The Star is joy and enthusiasm for what can be built upon the rubble. Though The Star is singular, it values communion and sharing what has been gained.
Wandersong doesn’t revel in its triumphs after the world is saved, but it gives hints as to what will follow. Revisiting the friends the bard made on their journey, they find new bonds having formed, tighter communities being built, and a renewed belief that everyone has the power to change the world.
The work hasn’t started yet so the scenes are reserved and bittersweet, but where the bard’s first departure witnessed despair now their friends are overjoyed to be wishing them onward. The bard is no longer the sole source of happiness to the people around them. They shared their love and now it is being shared back and around them.
The Moon & The Sun // 18 & 19
Wandersong deals heavily in the tension between self-efficacy and the overwhelming force of the larger universe. As has already been discussed, the bard is not the hero. They have not been ordained god’s chosen warrior and can do little on their own to stop the catastrophe. But to Aubrey’s confusion, they don’t give up. Why does the bard keep going if they know they’re not strong enough to stop Aubrey, let alone the end of the world?
The Moon and The Sun beg to be read as complementary. The Moon calls to the subconscious, the realm of dreams. It hints at what is possible, what we wish was possible, and what we are only beginning to understand. It also contains our fear, the things we push out of mind while awake only to be tortured with at night. It’s the push and pull between what we can and cannot control, jumbled and made incomprehensible beyond gut feeling and intuition.
The Sun discards all apprehension. It demands action and confidence, even blindly if it’s the only way to learn the truth. The Sun is our will to move tinged with the knowledge of The Moon. It takes what was once just a thought and forces it into reality. Contemplation is for nights of restless sleep. The Sun moves us forward, if only we allow ourselves to be seen.
Many people suffering from depression will attest to the sheer difficulty of getting out of bed. The world is intimidating and unknown, while the bed is safe, familiar. It can be challenging for anyone who hasn’t suffered depression to understand the weight it puts on you; how simple acts become excruciating tests of willpower against your brain. That Wandersong frequently uses depression as analogous to the universe’s inability to persist reflects its understanding of how moving requires more than pep talks and stubbornness.
The town of Chistmest is the most literal representation of depression, but the earlier stop at Delphi personifies its more subtle qualities. The town isn’t drenched in fog or full of people holding up in their rooms. Everyone has simply lost the desire and ability to do anything. They are stuck within The Moon, remembering a life they may or may not have lived, wishing things to change but not knowing how to do so. They are ponderous but not proactive.
There is some truth that being out in the sun can help those dealing with depression, but the metaphor of The Sun is less literal than that. It exists to succeed The Moon. Like all elements of the tarot, these two elements will continue to cycle and resurface, but what’s important is that they both exist. The Moon implies The Sun which implies an end to our mental pain and a return to health.
For Delphi and Chistmest, the bard moves people towards The Sun through example and a willingness to listen. The bard never dismisses someone’s problem no matter how trivial it may seem, and this has a profound effect on the people they interact with. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to hear all the jumbled thoughts bumping against your brain.
One of the most affecting instances of this is helping a sad boy befriend the dog he has been trying to pet. The particulars are unimportant, but it is difficult to overstate the impact this has on the boy’s day to day life. The bard just gave him some food to feed the dog; the boy gained a friend and an escape from the hopeless loop they had been stuck in. They could have bought that food themselves, but they were not in a place mentally to even think of that being an option. The bard reached out and that was all it took. The Moon cannot see The Sun, so The Sun goes to it.
Judgement // 20
Judgment is the arcana I struggled most with for this analysis. On its face, it could relate to Eya’s evaluation that the world has torn itself apart, or to Aubrey’s belief that the Overseers deserve their fate for having allowed themselves to erode. It could also be the moment where Aubrey and the bard are trapped in a cave and must come to terms with the decisions which brought them there. Both of these left me wanting.
To understand Judgement’s place in Wandersong requires a meta approach. That is to say, Judgement feels out of place because it is. Wandersong is not really about the end of the world, it’s just a narrative device. The only reason the apocalypse matters is because of what will be lost. The impending doom is dwarfed by the sense of preemptive grief over what could have been.
In tarot readings, Judgement acts similarly to Justice in asking the subject to take stock of their lives and make a choice for the future. It is a looser demand than Justice but a demand all the same, and being the penultimate card of the major arcana carries a special significance. It is the last step before either salvation or damnation and by necessity, we can’t know for sure which we’ll get.
Wandersong never spells out what the end or the rebirth of the world will look like, and I think this is deliberate. It doesn’t want the focus to be on what comes next. Speculating on the future won’t change the outcome.
This focus on the present, sometimes to a trivial degree, is voiced every time Miriam derides the bard for taking time helping random people. For her, the world’s doom takes precedence. But Wandersong wants us to meander and lose time to small talk. It’s a game about slowing down and seeing the thousand little delights around us. Yes, the world is ending, but let’s take a moment to appreciate what we‘re saving.
The World // 21
Allow me one final detour. For 21 arcana I have scarcely mentioned Wandersong’s music, a half deliberate, half accidental omission that could only be remedied with The World. The World is the culmination of every card that came before it, representing unity, hope, and conclusions. It is the personification of the world at the end of Wandersong which has reformed through the strength of its peoples’ bonds forged into a single magnificent song.
But I don’t want to talk about Wandersong’s actual soundtrack. The work A Shell in the Pit did on the game’s OST and audio design is magnificent, but it’s also unified in a way that doesn’t feel appropriate following the collaborative orchestration of Wandersong’s conclusion. Instead, I want to introduce Wandersong & Friends, a remix album that brilliantly summarizes everything Wandersong is trying to express.
Each of the 13 remixed tracks sounds dramatically different from their originals, yet they are all built on the original soundtrack’s foundation. Scattle’s “The Crater” introduces flavors of outrun electronic music and the hypnotic bass drone of their iconic contributions to Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games, 2012). Halina Heron gives a voice to the hummed melody of “The Song of the Wayfarer,” transforming it into a gorgeous ballad that recalls campfires and the Americana of Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer, 2020). John Robert Matz somehow turns the pirate shanty “Sailing with the Coffee Pirates” into what could easily pass for both an 18th-century battle march or ballroom waltz.
The experimentation of each track takes on added magnificence when considering how Wandersong ends. The world has been saved but not wholly preserved. People have changed and are still coming to terms with their new life. Wandersong already has a short epilogue, but I like to think that this remix album is the true outro. It is still recognizably Wandersong but rather than the voice of a single artist it showcases over a dozen, each adding their own identity to the work.
Each song the bard sings inevitably changes slightly with each reprisal, so it only makes sense that a world in which each person has taken up the melody would produce infinite permutations. Perhaps this is too grand a statement for a remix album, but I truly believe it says a lot about what Wandersong values and how it wishes to share those values with other creators. If the bard’s voice is actual magic, Wandersong’s soundtrack is social magic: open, transmutable, honest, and encouraging.
The World represents conclusions but not the end. Life goes on, only now it’s a little bit brighter. We’ve completed the journey and can rest easy. Go home, get some sleep. You have a whole life left to live.
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Just a quick thanks for reading all this. I hope it made sense and I recognize it was perhaps an over-ambitious concept. I played Wandersong on Xbox One and it’s also available on PC, Mac, Playstation 4, and the Nintendo Switch so pick it up.