How “Wandersong” Helped Me Come to Terms with My Anxiety

I play a lot of video games. When reminiscing of the past, all the way back to when I was a small child and 3D gaming technology was just beginning to crack into the market, I cannot personally recall a memory in which I was not in some way acclimated to the concept of gaming. My brother owned a cheap top loader NES model, where I toiled hours away to the worlds of Mega Man and The Legend of Zelda. Video games have always just been there for me, whether it was to have fun, relieve stress, or understand new concepts.

Yet throughout my life, I had never found a video game that I feel truly changed my life. While I’ve found many to be thought-provoking or creative in a way that opened me to a deeper level of understanding within the crafts of game design or interactive storytelling, they were merely creations that, like many pieces of media we consume within our culture, simply weathered away once the initial appeal weakened. Perhaps it is due to the vast quantity in which I consume this medium, or a result of the brief grace periods I allow for the games I play to truly sink in, but I could never find a game to genuinely hold on top of a pedestal to sing the praises of it’s perfection. Even my personal favorites are prone to some sharp criticism every now and then. Enter Wandersong.

Before I begin to comb through the various reasonings I have for holding this small indie game in such high regard, I feel it is crucial to make a few comments. I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder, shortened to GAD from now on for the purpose of encouraging my own indolence. I’ve had GAD all of my life, yet didn’t seek the proper medical avenues to nurse this illness until around four or five months prior to the writing of these words. I want to be very clear that I do not feel I was not magically cured of this condition through playing Wandersong, nor do I mean to suggest the game holds curative powers in the slightest. As much as I would like to say this game completely changed my perspective on life, and that I feel anyone who suffers from the same challenges I face would assuredly benefit from playing this game, that is simply not a logical conclusion to draw for anyone invested in maintaining a healthy mind. I have learned to manage GAD through a variety of practices such as self-care, self-praise, proper medication, and therapy. There is no one thing that can singlehandedly fix GAD, and I am certainly no expert in that matter as someone who basically just began care. I am, however, a massive nerd, which gives me ample expertise in the vein of gushing about my favorite media properties. And when I typed the title of this article onto my computer screen, I did so sincerely. Wandersong was not a cure, but it was a guiding hand in shaping the person who I am today, and further aspire to be.

Allow me to set the scene: It’s mid-autumn, the leaves have taken an amber hue and the air is beginning to taste bitter to bare skin. I am in my first semester of graduate school, and had just begun treatment for overbearing social anxiety that plagued me with constant worry for how I was perceived by those around me. I was sitting alone in a lounge next to my classroom when a few acquaintances made their way to this area. Meaning no ill intent, they elected to sit in a different area of the lounge, triggering my anxiety and leading me to remove myself from the situation. This was just one of many situations where I felt my GAD actively thwarted chances of social engagement. It stands out to me, as it was among the more peculiar causes for the attack, but also because it brought me some alone time to look up YouTube videos. One of my favorite YouTubers, Jim Sterling, haduploaded a short video of a peculiar indie game called Wandersong. When I saw this video, I was shown a garish-looking environment where the main objective was making a cardboard-cutout character sing songs. Jim received it well, and I felt it could provide me a quick pick-me-up, so I downloaded it to my Switch that night.

The structure of Wandersong’s gameplay is simple at it’s core. You play as a young bard, whom I elected to name ‘Felp’ by accident, who can run, jump, and sing. Singing is the main gimmick this game functions around, providing a wheel of eight colors assigned to eight unique tones. This concept never changes throughout the game, rather it builds new mechanics to utilize the concept in creative ways. It’s mostly a puzzle-platformer, with some rare instances of combat, usually won through the power of song. While this simple design structure allows for a bit of fun, Wandersong primarily excels through the brilliant writing. On the forefront, people beginning Wandersong will see something that appears to be aiming to deliver silly fun without much depth. You wouldn’t be remiss for believing so, as that’s how the game presents itself through it’s opening hours. But trust me, this was merely a front for the emotional journey I would eventually experience.

The first scene of the game had me controlling The Bard in a surreal, purplish landscape. I happen upon a sword, and upon wielding it I clearly see The Bard lacks the strength and coordination necessary for properly utilizing such a weapon. When I encounter a hulking beast with The Bard’s life on the line I tried to strike but failed miserably, my sword zipping straight out of The Bard’s hands into the unknown reaches beyond the screen. So with no weapon to fight a foe with a clear advantage in strength, size, and durability, what am I expected to do? Why, sing, of course! I tip the analog stick once used to swing my sword, but I instead hear the bellowing voice of The Bard, who’s song is powerful enough to keep the beast at bay. The beast then transforms into a long-haired girl, who claims to be testing The Bard’s potential as a chosen hero, as the world is about to end. Though he technically felled the beast, our new friend comes to the conclusion that The Bard is not the chosen one. The Bard casually shrugs this revelation off, happy to simply have his voice complimented by someone new.

This scene is carefully designed to expose the player to the values of which Wandersong was created upon. The value of respecting yourself for what you are capable of rather than what is expected of you, the value of understanding your potential and having no fear in admitting when you aren’t able to do something outside of that, and the value of achieving success through your own talents rather than relying on methods you aren’t comfortable with. Through various revelations, The Bard decides he must go on an adventure to save the world, not through violence as was asked by the powers that be, but through the joy of music. Throughout this adventure, The Bard is constantly presented problems that seem far too grand to manage, yet he shows a clear joy in tackling such issues in through his own means of music. Of course, these problems aren’t meant to bide with realism, the first major objective being to sing with ghosts so that they stop haunting a town. Nevertheless, The Bard is consistently making the effort to help his friends, acquaintances, and sometimes even complete strangers. He does this not out of pure altruism, but because he loves singing, and he loves the joy his singing can bring to people.

I think the moment where I knew I was playing something truly special came within the second act within the small town of Delphi. Delphi is a town stuck in a rut, with many citizens bored of everyday life, merely living day-to-day hoping for something exciting to happen. Coming from a small community in southern Indiana, I felt a surreal sense of relation I was not expecting to find with this game. The Bard is here for the purpose of his adventure, as it contains a piece of a song that could possibly heal the world. However, upon arriving, he is asked by a strange man to assist with the formation of a band. Having no leads on where he may find the song he needs, The Bard happily agrees. The band needs two other members, and there happens to be two talented musicians within Delphi. One is a violinist, who plays at a small cafe every day to a stagnant audience. The other is an accordionist who is merely visiting after the passing of their mother. The two musicians are polar opposites, with the violinist being happy to share her music with a broader audience, holding modest vanity for her talents, and the accordionist hesitant to join, not truly understanding their full potential as a musician. Through some convincing, The Bard manages to secure a band able to play a show that same night. The player controls The Bard during said performance, singing to match the notes played by your new bandmates, creating a truly beautiful interactive scene. But it’s not the buildup to the performance that got to me, nor was it the performance itself. It was what happened to the town the very next scene. The night passes and we are allowed to walk through the streets and speak with the NPCs that once held only negativity. The droning somber theme of the town has been replaced by one of vigor and hopefulness, and the once desensitized people of the town begin re-evaluating the lives they had been leading, now wearing heartwarming grins. The Bard decided to form a band because he thought it would be fun, and he knew people would enjoy his singing voice. In the process, he saved a town that was seemingly doomed to a cycle of misery.

Wandersong shows numerous similar occasions of which I will elect to avoid discussing on account of spoilers, but The Bard is consistently solving problems in his own way, refusing to let anything keep him down when he knows he can find a way to achieve success. Even when he is beaten down to the point of hopelessness, even when he fears his efforts will be for naught, he refuses to let the world he loves die.

Accompanying The Bard on his journey is a young witch named Miriam. She is impatient, grumpy, negative, and becomes easily annoyed by The Bard’s singing. She is the true antithesis to The Bard. At first, the pairing seems to be a clear method of writing comedic dichotomy, which is nothing new within the art of storytelling. But as the story grew more complex, I began to see Miriam in a different light. She began as a sidekick who merely added a layer of comedy to a few scenes by playing the straight man with an actual sense of urgency concerning the world’s fate, but I soon found myself feeling sympathetic to her. This wasn’t the standard sort of sympathy we all tend to feel when a character is given a string of harsh consequences that essentially force us to feel sorry for them. This was sympathy that felt personal.

GAD comes with a nasty set of side effects that aren’t necessarily easy to see as such. I would allow anxiety to control my emotions and experiences, which led me to becoming easily irritated, to having a deprecating outlook on others, and to be reluctant to new experiences merely out of worry. Miriam becomes easily annoyed by The Bard’s antics, she views the problems of others as hindrances, and she hates when the adventure is halted to take care of something off the track. I realized I was just like her.

When Miriam’s character was written, it wasn’t done out of any place of spite or pure negative intent. She is not meant to serve as a bumbling side character who’s merely there to make the audience feel better about themselves. She is here because she is our link to The Bard. Miriam is who I was, and I didn’t like that. Her own personal growth within the story of Wandersong might be the single most important thing I took from the game. As we progress to the end of the game, we see Miriam coming to terms with who she is and what she is capable of, just as The Bard is. Deep down, I think we all want to be like The Bard. He’s relentlessly optimistic, able to easily become friends with anyone he meets, and finds determination from the smallest glimmers of hope. Perhaps it’s odd to feel this way about a video game character, but The Bard’s outlook on life inspired me in the same way it inspired Miriam. I look up to his ideals as a child looks up to their favorite superhero.

After I completed Wandersong one Sunday evening, I just sort of remained where I was in that moment. I thought about my life, what made me happy, what made me sad, what I wanted to do before I died, and sometimes elected to think of nothing. After about an hour of stewing over the game I’d just experienced I went to the bathroom and shaved my beard for the first time in two years. To be honest, I never liked wearing a beard. It was a pain to maintain, constantly itched, and if I spilled anything sticky in it my chin would feel sticky until I showered. But a few people told me I looked better with it, which I took as less of a compliment and more of a criticism toward my bare face. So I kept it hidden. When I first felt crisp air hit my skin as I went outside to head for school, a part of me expected all of my classmates to tell me the mistake I’d made in shaving it away, and how I looked better with my face hidden by a patch of hair. Instead, nothing was said. Nobody even asked me about it. I think this was when I realized the capacity for change within myself. I had just made what seemed like a drastic shift in my life through the process of shaving, but it hadn’t really settled in just how normal that was for men to do.

Since playing Wandersong, I’ve come to understand myself far more personally, as strange as that sounds. I found out that I will always be a big lump of anxiety prone to having severe stress-related attacks, and, well, that just isn’t going to go away. But I have also realized I am far too strong of a person to let that get the better of me. I’ve begun to wear clothes that make me feel happy, regardless of how flashy they may seem. I’ve decided to pursue interests for pleasure rather than out of a sense of necessity. I’ve begun to confidently share tales of my battles with GAD, not out of some ploy to gain cheap pity, but because I feel empowered when I stare my demons in the eye.

I kid you not, I literally began asking myself how The Bard, a fictional video game character, would approach basic decisions I face as a result of a yearning for self-improvement. For example, I had always thought scarves looked pretty nice, but as a guy from the country, and one who typically only wore the most standard of clothing options, I always felt it was out of my element. But when I began to think about acquiring one last winter, I recalled a short exchange in which The Bard speaks proudly of the hat he wore, and how much fun he had simply wearing it. I bit the bullet and bought the scarf. I wear that damn thing whenever I can.