Psyop’s Camp W, An Interactive Visual Novel for All Ages

By: GeekyGamerGirl87

Developed and published by Psyop, Camp W is an interactive visual novel that is for all ages. I admit when I first was offered the code, I thought that this was going to be a kiddy type visual novel. Surprisingly, I find it to be great and it keeps you entertained with its interactive portions of the novel. If you enjoyed the Harry Potter series this visual novel would be a good fit for you. Before I go further into my review, I would like to thank Psyop for providing me with a free copy of Camp W.

The story starts off with you picking between Lysander (Ly), a young warlock or Liliandra (Lil), a young witch fresh from 7^th Grade, who unlike all the other witches and warlocks will not be going to the exclusive witch/warlock camp this summer. Instead, you get the luxury of preparing yourself for another uneventful summer of studying in the Witching Realm with your very famous and strict mother. Upon walking into your home your greeted by your Gadgy, your grandmother whose name was hard to pronounce so you took to calling her Gadgy and it stuck.

The other person you are greeted by is your famous mother Mila, who seems to only want the best for you.
However, as you are a young pre-teen or a teen (how old are 7^th graders now-a-days?) you don’t see that she’s looking out for your best interest. Making matters worse, Mila decides to give you a pop quiz as soon as you get in from sulking about how bad your summer is going to be. This upsets you, so you start to tell Mila how you feel, your Gadgy tells you to go for a walk to cool down. Leaving the house, you and your trusty familiar Nugget—a talking squirrel who has been pass down from generation of witches/warlocks in your family—, go out for the walk and stumble upon an altar that leads right to the door step of Camp Whupiwitchi, a summer camp in the Human Realm, and thus this is where your actual story truly begins.

One of the biggest things that I love about the novel is the look and feel of it. The art style of the visual novel is what drew me in. When I was a child there was a cartoon that use to come on The Disney Channel called The Proud Family, and this art style reminds me a lot of the same illustrations that they use in that show. So, reading this novel gave me a little bit of nostalgia. Therefore, I can tell that the illustrators of the novel have a strong love to the cartoons of the past. This is also, because later in the game, if you choose the right event, one of the campers Sid has a movie night, in which the campers watch He-Man: Masters of the Universe, and I thought that was awesome that they made a reference to it and helps add to my nostalgia for the novel.

I also wanted to take the time to say that I absolutely love the name of the camp. I thought it was clever that the camp name is Camp Whupiwitchi, witch (sorry I know it’s a bad pun), is a play on words. I can’t help to admit that I did smile and say, “Huh that’s cute, that you play as a witch and the word “witch” is in the name of the camp.” I know some would say that’s corny, but hey corny is cute to me. Therefore, for the sake of time let’s agree to disagree.

One thing I would have loved to seen, would have been for them to add voice overs for the other characters. It’s not a deal breaker, because the story and the interactive bits of the novel make it good. If they do decide to do a second story to this novel, it would be interesting to have voice overs. Like I said, not a deal breaker just more of a preference thing.

Another thing, I absolutely loved about this novel, that some may find controversy is that it does introduce a character name Sophie, who considers herself to be a witch in the Human Realm. This throws your character through a loop mainly because she/he is from the Witching Realm. Your character doesn’t call her out on some of her teaching but also let’s you know that Sophie does get some of it right. Although, she says that she practices witchcraft, it would have been a little nicer for them to say that she was either a Wiccan or Pagan or that she practices Wicca. I say this because it would have been a great way to teach others that it’s not necessarily nice to call them witches. Some do prefer to be called a Wiccan or Pagan.

Another big thing I love about the novel, is the diversity that is obtain in the novel. Not only did they include Sophie, who is a Wiccan/Pagan, but they also included a differently able character. It is nice to see that this isn’t just a typical novel, where everyone is “normal.” I am glad that the writers of the novel and the illustrators, did what they could to diversify the novel.  Although this visual novel is  good for all ages, I would like to point out that it could still be considered a starter visual novel. I think it’s good that they include all types of characters that no matter who you are, you will be able to relate to them. It is great that each character has their own personality, to make them even more relatable or irritable depending on the character. As a writer myself, I always say if you can’t make your reader feel genuine emotion towards your character then you are doing something wrong. However, with Camp W every emotion I feel is genuine, and I can say that the writer’s done a fantastic job of making the character’s relatable.

Another cool feature of the novel is the interactive aspects of it. This novel reminds me a lot of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. Mainly because in between the reading there are times where you get to choose how you want the story to progress . Depending on what you choose; you will then keep those memories  and the things you will collect in your Grimoire. However, it’s not the only thing that you use the Grimoire for. You will also have to at times use the Grimoire to trace spells (they are pretty much just tracing puzzles) into your Grimoire to cast spells. As well as inspect items further, so the interactive parts of the novel do help break up some of the reading that has to be done. I will admit, I was happy to choose my own path with Lil (who I chose as my character for my playthrough), and instead of just simply choosing anything I do put thought into how I want the story to move along. I also like that depending on what you choose, it will put the memories next to the character in the Grimoire, so you will be able to go back to see what characters had what memories, and each badge you collect also goes into your Grimoire.

If you are an achievement hunter, and looking for a relaxing way to gather achievements, you will be glad to know that Camp W does in fact come with achievements. There is a total of nineteen achievements for Camp W. Therefore, this is a game you may have to play a few times depending on how you select your story. There are no trading cards involved with the novel. I’m not sure if they will be adding trading cards to the novel. However, I think that if you would like to see the trading cards feature added; you should reach out to the developer’s and let them know. Sometimes developer’s will add trading cards if the demand for them is high enough.

Overall, I think that Camp W is a great visual novel for all ages. If you have never read a visual novel before, this would be a great visual novel to pick up. Between the story and the interactive bits of the novel, it will keep you very entertained for a good while. If you would like to read Camp W for yourself you can do so by picking up the novel on Steam, Humble Bundle for $12.99 USD.

If you are interested in seeing video footage of Camp W. I have included video footage that I created for the novel. You can see this footage down below. As always because this is attached to the review, the video does not include voiceover so you can enjoy the novel, as the developer’s would want you to.