Game: Camper Van: Make It Home
Genre: Relaxing, Indie
System: Steam (Windows, macOS)
Developers | Publishers: Malapata Studio | Malapata Studio, Wings
Controller Support: Full
Price: US $ TBC | UK £ TBC | EU € TBC
Release Date: June 7th, 2025
A review code was used, with many thanks to Future Friends Games.
Camper Van: Make it Home is an organization game similar to Unpacking, but it gives you more freedom to place objects. It also has a lot of environmental storytelling like Unpacking, with gentle pastel palettes and no time limits.
What is Camper Van: Make it Home Like to Play?
Camper Van: Make it Home feels a lot like Unpacking to play. However, instead of a set perspective, Camper Van: Make it Home allows you to move freely around your little van as you decorate, look through, and move around all the objects in your home. As you continue to buy bigger and better camper vans, you get more space and have more objects to store away.
You also get to choose a pet to bring along on your camping adventures: a cat, a dog, and a lizard. Your scaley or furry friend will also have a bunch of objects they will bring with them that also need a home inside your camper van.
There are several levels, and each one has a slightly different selection of items and some have different vans. The different levels take place in different seasons, so you will get winter clothes to sort when it is snowing outside, bathing suits during the summer season, and things like that. There are also collectibles that you add to your scrapbook that you keep of all your van-life travels.
If you played the demo, I think some improvements have been made since with movement and getting around inside your little camper. It was one of the few things I actually complained about when I reviewed the demo of Camper Van: Make It Home back in June of 2024. It feels a lot easier to move around, zoom in, open drawers, and put items away the way you want to.
The Pros of Camper Van: Make it Home
Camper Van: Make it Home is really relaxing with nice music, beautiful sound design, and no rush to getting things just right. As the story moves along, you get some hints as to what is changing in the life of the owner of these vans. You keep a scrapbook to memorialize all your travels, and you can place items both inside and outside of your van.
It is a gorgeous game filled with pastel colors, soft lighting, and just nice vibes. It’s a very cozy game to play, and it’s so nice to look at. I liked that the developers added the ability to change the colors of the outside of the van and choose the style of the interior as well. It was a nice touch to a game all about making this van your home.
The Cons of Camper Van: Make it Home
While Camper Van: Make it Home did have a little bit of environmental storytelling, it didn’t feel like I got to know the main character of the game as well as I did in Unpacking. I saw a few hints as to the type of person I was playing as and what was going on in her life, but it didn’t dive as deeply as it could have.
Some of the movement in the full release of Camper Van: Make it Home is still a little bit awkward. It can be difficult to maneuver around to see all the different corners and items up close. Another small issue I had with the game was a few visual bugs and a couple of objects getting stuck when I put them down. Most objects clip through the scrapbook that you carry through the whole game from level to level, which was fairly annoying. It might seem like a small thing, but a game that is very focused on visuals and vibes loses something when the items don’t always work as intended.
I think my biggest issue, however, was the lack of a creative mode. I was super hyped up to finish the game so I could make my own camper van to call home from one of the templates given, where I could choose what items I wanted to bring along from the plethora of adorable items in the game. But Camper Van: Make it Home really let me down when I realized there was no creative mode for me to play.
There was a lot of language on the Kickstarter for this game that made it sound like there would be one, but the campaign was $400 short of getting this creative mode. I was so disappointed that I wouldn’t be getting this mode even though it would make this game feel complete.
Conclusion
Overall, Camper Van: Make it Home is a lot of fun. It’s cute, it’s cozy, and the premise is great. However, it didn’t quite feel done without a creative mode. It’s pretty short, but it’s one of those games you can play several times and still get the same relaxing vibes out of it that you did the first time. I enjoyed my time with Camper Van: Make it Home, but I’m not sure it is worth the price that players will need to pay for it.
Final Verdict: I Like it.
Do you like our content?
Support LadiesGamers as a member on Patreon!
Or buy us a cup of coffee or tea on Ko-Fi!
