The Witch of Fern Island

Honestly, the reviews really worried me, but I decided to give it a try myself and I'm so glad I didn't listen. Is it grindy? Yeah, but as someone who already likes to walk around and collect everything I find, it doesn't bother me at all. You can get so much of that one thing and store it and then focus on something else the next day, like it's so easy to get enough stuck of the base ingredients found in the wild. I love that you start with nothing at all. The house is ♥♥♥♥. Bridges are broken. You want that recipe? Collect enough of that thing you need to unlock it, because you can only really know how to use it once you've studied it enough, right? Love that. I'm actually excited to get to upgrade the house, even if I can't at the moment. I get annoyed when that softwood isn't there, so I do other stuff until it is and end up having fun either way. Like, you're a kid on an island that needs you, and you're as lost as everyone else. It makes sense that you don't know what you're doing and need to find that out the hard way. I'm having a blast, this game is really great

Achievements: Multiple broken/impossible achievements. "Riches Everywhere" did not trigger for me. "Tzoru Master Breeder" seems to require content that is only available to Kickstarter backers. There's a missable achievement depending on which ending you choose, although it's possible to get both achievements in one run if you make sure to quit without ending the day. My disappointment in this game can be summarized by a quote from the game itself. The description of an item called the Mushroom Picker Charm: "Extra 20% chance of additional mushrom when picking up. Banned in the competition of mushroom pickers during the Forest Festival." First problem? Poor translations. Many such sentences in the game are clunkily worded and riddled with spelling errors (like "mushrom"). It is very hard to interpret what the NPCs are talking about. It's not just the translations, though. I've played games with subpar translations. It's something that I can easily overcome if the story is compelling enough. Unfortunately, that's not the case here. Lore is not presented to the player in a manner that makes it interesting. Concepts will be casually mentioned by characters without any context or explanation. The game's own description says, "Experience the cultures, traditions and beliefs of the Boran, Apatut, and Kuqkwa, and take part in their rituals and festivals." I'm still unsure on what the cultures even were. It's a very cool idea, but there was zero execution. This brings me to my other complaint about the Mushroom Picker Charm description. Remember how it mentioned a "Forest Festival"? There is none! The game description itself boasts cultural festivals. There are currently two festivals in the game. TWO. And they're both repetitive, generic minigames with no discernible connection to any culture that the game has vaguely mentioned. I don't remember the NPCs even mentioning the festivals. All they did was meander robotically around the general area the festival took place. I could be remembering incorrectly, to be fair. The NPCs were all such lifeless statues that I didn't feel inclined to thoroughly read their dialogue-- especially since their dialogue repeated so frequently. One NPC spent an entire season repeating the same comment about another character's preference for carrot cake. Befriending NPCs did not seem to unlock more dialogue. If that's not bad enough, 7 of the 18 characters were literally pointless to befriend (other than for the achievement to befriend everyone). They had no events. No quests. No unlocks. No new dialogue. Nothing. And, unfortunately, there's no romance system either. I can tack on a litany of other little disappointments. It is easy to get physically stuck in the terrain. The character will keep doing a jumping animation, preventing you from teleporting. The only recourse is quitting and loading, which resets the progress of the day. In a game with this much exploration, the lack of an 'unstuck' button is pretty unforgiveable. Farming feels grindy, and upgrading tools doesn't help. You'll have to water each square one by one even with the best watering can. Although there are means to make watering faster, it requires a repeated payment of rare resources. Sowing seeds, tilling the soil, and harvesting is also done one square at a time. Each have annoying little animations that make it feel even slower. Improvements to the hoe and sickle do not expand their effective area. The game's description boasts a spiritual dimension called the Astra. The Astra, while cool looking, is void of content. You can't use items there, so there's no fishing, mining, etc. It's also a painful slog to navigate. It forces you to trek back one single item at a time. These items spawn in preset locations that are never close to the portal you came through. The items have to be physically carried on foot and are easily dropped in water and lost forever with how invisible the water looks. Getting stuck in the terrain is even easier and more devastating than normal, considering the broom and teleportation are not allowed. Many resources are fairly pointless. 14 of the 17 insects have no unique recipes requiring them and no use in any quest. Although they can be used in gifting or creating essence, there are easier, more abundant alternatives. This is the same with 22 of the 30 fish as well. Even though 'spirit pike', 'balerina', and 'firesfin' are all cool and unique looking fish, they are functionally identical. The fur you get from rabbits is entirely useless. The same with shark teeth. The means with which you gather these resources is also disappointing. Insects are not scattered around the map in biome appropriate locations. One insect spawns each day next to each insect hotel sprinkled across the map. There is no variance per biome. They never wander away from the hotel. The fishing minigame is not fun. Though there are many trees and rocks dotting the landscape, they're all decorative. None of them are interactable. You have to mine and woodcut at specifically designated areas where stumps and ore spawn. Some ore seemed to take multiple seasons to respawn. The most bright and apparent looking plants generally aren't the ones you can collect. The plants you actually collect are so tiny and non-descript as to look identical-- although they do sparkle. The forageable flowers aren't even colorful. Additionally, there is no in-game map showing where resources spawn. Some plants only appear in small, specific areas. Despite all my complaints, I did really enjoy the game. I got more than a hundred hours out of it. I found some of the mechanics really fun. The broom took forever to unlock, but it was probably the best part of the game. The moon phase system felt fresh and interesting. The inclusion of six seasons was pretty unique. Although the inventory and stamina bar felt incredibly limiting at first, it was really satisfying to solve puzzles and explore the environment to unlock more. You have to place your own markers on the map which, while initially annoying, was actually kinda fun. It made it all the more gratifying to see my map expand with markers as I played. I liked how you could upgrade your knowledge of different resources to discover recipes and find better versions of them. The camera was a fun addition, although its uses were limited. The main story, while incomprehensible, was at least different from most farming sim's generic 'collect each rare resource to restore the land' quests. While I hated a lot about this game, I also loved many parts of it. I'm a huge farm sim fan. This game scratched that My Time at Portia/Sandrock itch while still feeling unique. So why the negative review? Well, it's a great game at its core, but it's unfinished and abandoned. It's been left with bugs, constant stutters, random crashes, and translation errors that make it hard to connect to the story or the characters. Frankly, it's incredibly janky. I think it's a level of jank that most players would find unplayable. And, honestly? I'm still pretty salty that there's an achievement requiring Kickstarter content. It's literally impossible to obtain it now. From what I can tell from the Kickstarter page, it required a donation of $71 to unlock. I simply cannot recommend a game that would bar access to an achievement like that. To be fair, it could be that the achievement is simply broken. That doesn't make it that much better, though. If you can tolerate a lot of jank and you don't care about achievements, this game is actually pretty fun. Otherwise? Give it a pass.

I have tried to play this game because I had kickstarted it and it looked fun and the story seemd fun.... Unfortunately.... It's not the fun kind of clunky/goofy/indy. My problems started when I booted the a new game. The animations were rough. but not just that : The starting cutscene doesn't even play properly. Then the characters have no animation.... Like they don't even blink. Why don't they even blink? They are super realistic characters but they don't blink! If the camera was active and not passive while in the cutscene it wouldn't have been a problem but..... no, the camera just stayed in place with no sound, no animations. In the first starting cutscene I couldn't even tell who was talking to me because the characters wouldn't move and their names didn't hint (like there was not a man and a woman for example). There's a doctor and a woman wearing a red suit. I learned after the cutscene who was who, because they were added to my friends menu, but nothing in their movements could hint me at who was talking. And if your NPC feel static.... Then there was the menu... I don't know if my game bugged but it didn't even tell me how to properly access all the menus. I had to qwerty my way to finding the right button to press to know. You are thrown without a real story into the game, follow the small questline to meet people but... if they all feel as unblinking as the other ones.... It doesn't make me want to go out of my way to explore. There is so much stuff to gather and nothing to tell you what it's used for, if it's important or anything. I wanted to like this game, but unfortunately I can't in the state that it is in.

I wanted to clear some things up in case some reviews are swaying you in a negative direction. I am chronically ill and that means I have brain fog and get frustrated with games that aren't very clear or intuitive. While there are some things about this game that aren't completely obvious, this game isn't like that. It doesn't hold your hand, but it has plenty of tutorials and if you're paying attention, you'll know what to do. This game sort of starts off like the Stardew Valley types of games, but picking weeds doesn't use your energy, which is nice! The cut scenes are a bit screwed up and it does not sound like the developer is a native English speaker with some oddly written dialogue and quite a few typos. If you can get past that, this game is fantastic for exploration, crafting, fetch quests, etc. There are signs in areas telling you what plant life can be found there. You can go check back on tutorials at any time in the options, and it even tells you what you can do to level up your knowledge about your items. Some of the scenery in this game is *chef's kiss*. So relaxing and calming. Find a waterfall and chill for a second if you have some time at night or stand quietly by the fireflies. Remember fireflies?! One of the downsides with the quests is figuring out how to find the people you need to talk to. When you "follow" a quest, I expected them to show up on the map, but they don't. If that could be implemented into the game, that would be great. I've been having fun with it, even with limited energy, and I definitely recommend this game if you're ok with a lack of polish and you're into exploratory Stardew Valley types of games.

A cosy game that is just not fun. Or cosy. The gameplay is really confusing and I had to Google everything, including how to progress the main story. It's a very janky, buggy, boring game, that pretty much consists of gathering 999 items on a daily basis. It feels cumbersome and sluggish, and after 42 hours I'd still not unlocked the broom or fast travel. The character models are awful as well. In summary, this is the Elden Ring of cosy games, except the devs forgot that a game is actually supposed to be fun to play.

This game is very charming. There are a lot of reviews that complain about the lack of clarity on what to do, but I found that to be part of the fun! You play as an apprentice witch that is stranded on a strange island. You must learn the island inside and out either on foot, by Tzoru, or eventually (my favorite mode of transport) by broom! This game is about adventure so please don't be fooled by shallow reviews! Come to Fern Island and learn what it takes to be an apprentice witch!!

Ich muss ehrlich sagen, ich lese die negativen Bewertungen und frage mich, ob die Leute heute noch in der Lage sind, sich in eine Spielwelt einzudenken, anstatt nur eine Checkliste abzuarbeiten. Wer nach nur wenigen Spielstunden eine tiefgründige Welt erwartet, sollte vielleicht zu linearen Shootern wechseln. 'The Witch of Fern Island' ist ein langsames, entspanntes Game. Ja, das Speichern funktioniert, wenn man zu Bett geht. Das ist ein Konzept, das man in 5 Minuten versteht. Wer das nicht schafft oder sich über eine einzige Taste beschwert, die man ändern kann, dem ist wohl nicht zu helfen. Das Spiel fordert minimale Anpassung – offenbar zu viel für einige. a, das Spiel hat technische Macken. Das stimmt. Aber viele Probleme, die hier geschildert werden, klingen nach veralteten Systemen oder Treibern. Bevor man das Spiel schlechtredet, sollte man vielleicht mal seinen eigenen PC checken. Bei mir läuft es stabil. Ja, die Übersetzung sie ist nicht perfekt. Aber sie ist absolut verständlich und hat Stil. Wer hier ernsthaft scheitert, der hat vielleicht einfach ein Problem mit Texten, die über das Niveau einer WhatsApp-Nachricht hinausgehen. Und zum Schluss an alle Kritiker: Vielleicht liegt das Problem einfach darin, dass man ein Hirn braucht, um dieses Spiel zu würdigen, nicht nur einen Controller.

Not even worth the sale price! I got through the initial cut scenes and gameplay and then quickly realized I should've believed all the bad reviews.

I'm playing the game after and with watching a guide on youtube, because I have brain damage. There were also alot of negative reviews which made me question whether to buy this game or not. So it was also useful to look to the youtube-video's, to see what kind of game it iwas/is. I have to say that it's an amazing game and very addictiive. You play as a withc who fell of her broom and landed on an island. You get a farmhouse, a rather big one immediately and you'll be helping the locals and yourself to become a better witch and just to get further in the story. You can chose to do your garden daily, butit's not like in other games neccesary to check on it every single in-game day. Watering the flowers and crops is enough for, depending on what you've planted, one ingame day of nót having to water the crops and flowers. There is a well that you can fix and then you can fill your watering can on your farm instead of in front of the house. It's best to water al your plots, otherwise you'll have to use the hoe again to create a new spot for yourself to plant on, but it keeps you busy if you like to do anyway. On youtube, I think it was dated from when it aired in 2024 and there was a patch, I'm sure of it, that you can't make as much food as the youtuber did. She made in the beginning of the game way more drops (that's the ingame currency for money) than I can do now. But nevertheless is it an amazing game, since you can go to the beaches to collect items which can be donated to the museaum and after thatyou can either sell them normally or by crafting items from them. Explore the map is a huge part of the game and you will be at the same places lots of times to come back and collect the items that you want and/or need. You can work on your farm, you can work on quests and so much more! There's never a dull moment, at least not for me, since I ofcourse watch youtube in the meantime aswell. But i'm starting to learn how to navigate on the map a bit, so it's been getting a litlle bit more easy for me to play it. The only thing that doesn't work is handing in the quests you pick up froim the messenger board, which is a shame, because you can make lots of drops with those extra quests. Or I'm doing something wrong, but I tried two of them and I couldn't hand in both of them, yet I had the requird items. I might make a post about it if it really slows down the progress in the game. But for now it's not a very big deal, but I can imagine that people who play it can be disappointed by this. I myself am that aswell. I dó recommend buying this game, especially if you wishlisted this game and the Summer-sale is going on or the game is on sale itself. It's worth the entire price in my honest opinion, but I'm glad I've bought it with a discount. You can change your hair color and chose different hair-styles for a small fee at the barber shop, which is very nice, because I myself didn't neccesarily wanted to look like a witch. The dlc is very usefull, because it not only gives you two outfits, it also gives you (the white set) a lot of furniture in which you can put items, which you will be needing for sure. Because there's an overflow of collectables in this game., such as a lot of cooking supplies, weeds that can be I believe at least 3 different items and once you've bought the sickle, you have a chance on getting higher quality items so you need even more storage space. There are lots of flowers and mushrooms to collect aswell, which you'll be needing for crafing, so also for this is the dlc very useful and your house looks also way better, because if you have to buy the items in-game, you need to spent a lot of time grinding items and there is a cooldown on them, so it's then almost impossible to play the game as it should be played. The ingame days are long, you walk very fast from yourself already, but sprinting gives you even more time to farm items and hand in quests. Keep in mind that the stores open at a certain time, so you can walk there and be on time for when they open. Ofcourse is not every shop close-by, so then I suggest to sprint. I do it as a habit now, but it's not neccesary at all. If you want to reach the most part of the beaches in the beginning of the game, you can swim around the island or better said up north, to go to the next beaches in order for you to collect all the beach items at once. Otherwise you'll have to run over a lot of land to get there. So this might be an easier trick for you! I hope more people buy the game and that the defs decide to update the game again. I know it's been forever since the game aired, but it would be great if the defs made it a bit easier in the beginning to earn drops, like how it was in 2024, before they patched it. The game can be easily played on the highest settings. My game only crashed one time and luckily I hadn't done too much, so it was no big deal. But an auto-save or manual save-option, rather than to go to sleep and finish the day, would be appreciated. I give this game a 9/10. It's a very addictive game, the graphics are amazing, there's lots to do, the game looks amazing if you can play it on the besy settings (I think a patota can handle the settings, there's been no lag or anything mayor for that matter) and the time you get to do quests and farm is really fair. It's also very nice that you can change the way your charcter looks and how the inside of your house is. There is a furniture shop in the game, so if you have enough drops you can chose to buy there if you don't want to spent money on the dlc (the dlc is very cheap when it's on sale tho, which is also a plus!).

They tried to make a cute game I'll give you that, but npcs are robotic, dialogues are boring, the gameplay is clunky af. And the only resolution the game supports is 1280x720 not even 1920x1080. I don't even remember when I got the game, all I know is it's not recently, if it was I would have returned it. Cause it is also very much abandoned honestly after coming out of EA (the last update seems to be november 2024). I do not recommend it unfortunately. There are other games better than this out there.