The Witch's Yarn

I usually pride myself on being quite tolerant when it comes to games. That is to say, I enjoy a wide variety of them and rarely have trouble finding something to like even in a game that doesn't appeal to me. Yet, this game is, quite simply, so boring that it nearly put me to sleep almost as soon as I started playing. Unfortunately, the situation didn't improve any as I tried to keep playing on. Finally, after a short time that felt like far longer, I did ultimately give up and quit. If I had actually bought it rather than getting it in a bundle, I'd be kicking myself right now. But, I understand that my opinion alone isn't all that helpful. So, some info on the game: The gameplay - This game is incredibly simple to play, but that is a big part of what makes it almost unbearable for me to play. The description makes it sound as though your actions and directions, as the player, ultimately create and shape the story. This is true, but in the weakest way possible. Basically, it goes like this: the characters on the screen have speech bubbles pop up for you to read and/or click through, and after several of these, one or more "cues" (little labelled pictures) will show up at the top of the screen for you to select one of in order to cue the next action, usually with little to no indication of the relevance or role of most of them, after which you get another series of speech bubbles followed by another set of cues. Rinse and repeat, and that's about it. To make it worse, many of them are in a loop of sorts, so you basically get routed back to the same choices until you make the "right" one to continue the story, after reading more speech bubbles each time, of course. Also, if you make a true "wrong" choice and hit an "ending," you just un-cue your choice and choose something else. It quickly becomes tedious, and it doesn't take long to just stop caring. The story - As it says in the description, you're a witch that opens a yarn store. Beyond that, the characters and storyline are mostly quite shallow and unengaging. I didn't care about any of them, beyond wanting to take tape and seal their mouths shut, as they talk way too much. I did come to a couple early "endings" that apparently happen if you choose the "wrong" cues, but they didn't really make a whole lot of sense in terms of the sequence of events, so while I cannot comment on the longer storyline that (hopefully) is to be found if you stick with it and choose the right options, I don't hold out much hope for it. In any case, my lack of playing time means I can't comment on the story much. The really sad thing is, I truly did want to like this, as it sounded interesting and unique. I don't even mind "reading" games if the story and gameplay elements are interesting and fun. But, this was a disappontment on every count. If you really want to play it, I highly recommend watching for a bundle, or at least a really good sale. That way, at least the loss is minimal.

I wanted to like this game because it had such an interesting concept, but unfortunately. . . I thought it would be something akin to a visual novel, and it sort of is. The major flaw is that the story is just not that engaging--you're a witch opening a yarn store. Okay, so it says that in the game info, but I expected lots of humor, absurdity, etc. given the concept. Those aspects do not exist, and what story there is is very dry. The game is set up to play like you are creating a movie, but you're really not. Instead, as the other reviewer mentioned, you are just tediously clicking little icons of each character at the top of the screen. Then you wait for them to pop in at odd places in your yarn store, a cartoon-like bubble of their speech pops up, you read it, and then repeat. Over and over again. In the screen shots, it looks like you get different settings, but I never made it out of the yarn store before uninstalling.

[b]- Endora: Samantha, I will not stand here and be insulted by something which is 94 percent water. - Darrin Stephens: Oh, yeah! Well, what about something which is a hundred percent hot air? Bewitched (1964 - 1972)[/b] Well... This is the first of Mousechief's games that I've tried, and... I am bored out of my wits. First and foremost, the game doesn't deliver anything it says in the store description: no, it is not a delightful reading - the narrative is boorish and the humor is forced; it has nothing to do with any kind of theatre experience aside the usage of the word "cue", and as a game that claims to be a hybrid between a P&C adventure and a visual novel, it fails at both genres! Okay, let's begin with the story. Here we have a middle-aged witch who has foresworn magic to live happily with her chosen mortal. She gets married, has three kids and lives happily ever after until she loses her husband to cancer. Wednesday is now alone and apparently on a full-blown midlife crisis, since she opens a yarn shop to become a productive and independent woman of the 21st century, alongside her familiar, Greta - who is a mushroom in a pot. Her mother and most her other relatives belittle her choice and wish for her to come back to her magical ways, but Wednesday persists. She'll run this yarn shop with success, to prove that she is and always will be more than what her relatives deemed her to be. As you can see, this is, more or less, the ever after part for [i]Bewitched[/i]: what happens after the happily ever after, right? The idea itself is nice, and if it were not to bear deep rooted execution mistakes, it might have been fun even. But as it is, it is one of the most boring games I've ever played; and I'm claiming this as a long standing visual novel gamer. No, I don’t have any problems with either a static/slow progressing gameplay or reading blocks of texts for the sake of story; as long as the narrative is interesting, characters are endearing and realistic; and the interaction is somewhat enjoyable. Heck, it is none of the above for this game. Let's start with the display. I am aware for this to be a low budget indie game anyhow; but who in their right minds would use full static clip arts for character avatars? That is plain ridiculous. The screen size is stuck in a small window, in which reading hurts your eyes and gives you a headache immediately. Environment art is neither esthetic, nor sensible; and the same 2 jazz tracks loop on the background with appalling audio quality. Thus, even if the narrative would be interesting enough, you'd give in after your first 10 minutes, and get done with this thing. Still, I have persisted for nearly 2 hours, and all that I have managed to discover at the end of 3rd chapter is... that characters are not relatable since they bear the depth of a rainy day sidewalk puddle, the humor is the driest I've ever seen - like it's been taken out of a 50s infomercial - and the gameplay is insufferable. At every scene, you are given the option to click one of the topics - people, things, events etc. - from the bar to initiate some kind of scene for them. They are called cues. You keep clicking them in the right order in hopes of reaching for your goal and make the story progress. But these interactions are deadly repetitive, and it takes time for you to go through various options since you'd have no idea what a positive cue for Wednesday would be, and what would be a negative cue. You keep going through cues until you magically solve the current scene - which apparently counts as a "puzzle" for this game - and you carry on through another block of insufferable dialogue. There you go: picking cues counts as P&C, and reading texts counts as VN, huh? But the game erases the enjoyable part of both of those genres: a VN asks for character and narrative depth first and foremost; and a P&C adventure needs that "aha!" moment when you finally arrange the right combination for an actual puzzle to progress the story. Since you can only use given cues here, no "aha!" moment for you. You just play through some probabilities. Should this be called a revolutionary combination of two genres? Nope, nope, nope. I cannot take this anymore. Thank you. As a lover of stories in games, this is one of those rare moments that I'll leave a game unfinished. I simply cannot handle the bore. It might come as a harsh judgement, but please, stay away from this game. Both for a VN or a P&C adventure, you can do thousands of times better than this. Please also check out Lady Storyteller's Curator page [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/11672469/]here[/url] - follow for regular updates on reviews for other games!

This game is not bad as most people say. Of course, it's just a visual novel game but your choices will lead to different story and that's fine by me. The main plot of this game is about learning how to run business, how to maintain family's relationship and how to live in mortal world. โดยรวมแล้วก็เล่นเพลินๆดีครับ

Just one word can describe this game: Tedious.

This was OK - but please read before buying. Not as good as I'd hoped - note my time is rather high because I left it running a couple of times when called away. Anyway... Seemed to have a lot of potential, but never quite got there. I liked the fact that if you made too many bad choices and got to an early (bad) ending, it was easy to go back to a key part and try again. Some of the characters were engaging. But it was just a bit too pedantic and never really made it to fully engaging. Two or three fun puzzles. I stopped partway through, then came back and finished it - but I could see why I stopped partway through. To sum up: does have some good aspects for those who enjoy point and click, mild puzzles and visual novels; good aspects generally outweighed by slow story and fact that you never quite get attached to the characters (even though I did find the main character a refreshing change from the usual). I'd say 5/10 for a "meh" (wish that was a rating).

Wow, that was really boring. It took me 9 minutes to "finish" the story, it seemed like a heck of a lot longer. Though, there are multiple endings. Basics: Yarn shop. Bad graphics. A witch with a mushroom as a familiar (a mushroom??? That talks?? A lot more boring than you would think.) The witch has decided to open up a yarn shop without the use of magic. A speech bubble pops up, you click on someone's face, that person has a certain response that moves the story in a certain direction. Other than clicking who talks next, you have pretty much 0 control over the story itself. After 9 minutes of random clicking and boredom, it told me my witch gave up. Yay. That was ...great... It is like a really bad 'Choose your own adventure' where you have absolutely no desire to care about the characters and don't actually know why you want to pick one option over another.

This is a terrible game. Boring, weak writing and story... The graphics are okay for 2006, but not amazing. I can tolerate weak graphics if the story is good, but this one is not. I got it for about 20 cents US in a bundle, and played for about 10 minutes. Did I give it a chance? Yes, given how it began, where you are supposed to draw the player in, I knew it wouldnt get better.

Poorly written. Really wish I'd read the reviews prior. I don't mind visual novel games, rally, but this one just made no sense. People don't talk like this or act this way, so why am I being asked to believe they do? Don't bother with this one, true waste of money.

Может, задумка была интересна, но на первый взгляд - полная фигня. Описание гласит, что игра представляет из себя интерактивный фильм. По факту: читаем комиксового вида диалоги и изредка тыкаем в иконки персонажей в верхней части экрана. Интерактивность заключается в том, в каком порядке тыкать иконки. Игру мог бы спасти хороший юмор, но в течение первых минут его не обнаружилось. А больше - "ниасилил".