The gameplay includes a system of tea-making and farming with seed-planting that creates more seeds and fruit for use in the tea, as the shop and its customers are attended to throughout the narrative.

The game's protagonist, Alta, is a former warrior who has been traumatized by fighting in an arena,[2] fallen upon hard times after several defeats and a particularly crushing loss.

[6] Boro, the shopkeeper, speaks idiosyncratically and is easygoing, with what TheGamer described as having "the wisdom not to take things so damn seriously", with the sensibility of a Buddhist;[4] the customers include a man under a witch's curse that controls his limbs, who pretends to be a knight in order to impress his son, who is aware of his silliness;[4][6] and a demon hunter who is left without demons to hunt and instead tries to aid communities through social work.

[4] Customers may ask for a drink providing a desired effect, which different fruits will produce; a field guide can be consulted to attain knowledge of the proper one.

[6] Alta can roam the grounds to trim weeds, water plants,[4] and sweep leaves to find decorative items or dirty teacups.

[4] The mechanics of Wanderstop are designed to not cause stress; customers will wait for as long as it takes you to prepare the tea, botching a drink does not result in punishment but rather the opportunity to try again, and the activities have guides to help the player figure them out.

He had begun to daydream of going to a tea shop in the woods and lying on a bench by the water, and after sketching variations of the scene, decided that image would become the basis of his next game.

[9] In July 2019, Wreden began hiring for a gameplay programmer working on tea-related implements and a systems engineer for his next game.

[10] In 2020, C418 said that he would serve as the "lead audio person" for a video game development studio based in Austin, Texas helmed by Wreden.

She spent much of her early development on Wanderstop setting up animation technology to automatically handle many different situations, including character idle and active stances.

[18] C418 also served as sound designer, and was directly involved in implementing the SFX into the game, a task he described as "extremely hands on in a way I've never been allowed to".

[20] On July 29, 2021, C418, Wreden, and Gone Home artist Karla Zimonja revealed their game development studio Ivy Road, and announced a partnership with Annapurna Interactive.

[21] Their publishing agreement was one of four announced at Annapurna's showcase that day; the others were with Outer Loop, No Code, and Canadian developer Jessica Mak.

[26] By the time that the entire staff of the game's publisher Annapurna had resigned in September, Wreden affirmed that the team at Ivy Road remained "100 percent okay", and that "Nothing's gonna stop us from getting Wanderstop out the door very soon" on an X post.