Witch Strandings

too long don't care to read: it's less game and more experience and I recommend it on the basis that you get it on a sale or in a bundle. Witch Stranding is full of atmosphere, from visuals to sound. A lot of the game is conveyed purely from being in the world. There is very little text, but it's well written and mostly between the lines. It adds to the mystique of it all, but doesn't make anything clearer. Most of the game is simply felt. Especially through your movements. You only have your mousecursor, and you will move it around a lot. Quite strenuous on longer play sessions tbh. It is very tactile and a lot of the gameplay, as well as the feeling of your surroundings, is conveyed through your your movements. To me that's the biggest plus of Witch Stranding. Unfortunately the game doesn't really give much feedback on what you're doing. Are you performing well? Are you on the right way? What should you do next? ... I couldn't figure it out. I played the game for 3 hours, unlocked "the heart", couldn't find the witch and stopped playing at some point. I started a new game (which deletes the previous save), played for another hour. I performed better by my own metric (ie less deaths, faster progress towards "the heart", more requests fullfilled), but I do not feel, like I am getting it now. Actually it feels like it makes no difference at all. Helping the animals and reconstructing the structures, clearing hexes and brambles ...I am pretty sure the game doesn't care about anything of it. There is a clock tracking time, and when you die, time is sped up. A new day makes the animals move a few tiles, creates new requests and replenishes some items. But it doesn't seem to make any difference to the gameworld, or the witch ...or me. It's weird. Despite being confused and not able to finish the game I am quite fond of the experience. My only gripe is, that it's way too expensive. The price generates an expectation that Witch Stranding can't fullfill.

Amazing game! Unique concept! Unfortunately I cannot play because I have the trackball and it's slow even at maximum sensitivity. Anyway great original game, can be bought even at full price.

It could have been interesting if it didn't actively hurt to play. It would have been so much nicer if I didn't have to sweep my mouse all over the place just to move. Maybe just keyboard or joystick style controls would have been better.

A really strange title. Your mouse cursor is your character and different tile types impede your movement, so to build paths you grab items and click and drag them into place. It's a simple narrative, but it is fun to free wheel around the map with your little light orb once you've built paths for yourself. Traversing the forest grid is almost meditative, and the soundtrack really adds to this trance-like play state. There's some interesting bits of description surrounding the animal characters but nothing that gives enough depth to sink emotional hooks into the player. It would have been nice to see a few more endings to this bare bones story to give it a little more depth and punch, or procedural generation on the level itself to give the game a little more replayability, but I enjoyed my time with this game so I'm recommending it. This title has definitely inspired me to look for games with this type of abstract, minimalist style. If you are a game designer or like trying games that are experimenting with off beat gameplay styles, this is a title for you.

Bought it entirely for having a unique art style and I simply had not played anything like this before. I cursed at getting stuck in Hex tiles a few times, but altering mouse sensitivity a few times lead to an interesting adventure. Completed in under two hours, but plan to go many rounds in my little forest when I need a break from the headache of 3D atmospheres. My green little heart beats.

I really enjoyed it. I probably wouldn't pick it up for $15, and just know that it's not an action game. There are some very interesting, moving concepts touched on, but not explored. The premise of the game, centered on rebirth and redemption, is very powerful to me, but may not be for others. Few hours of relaxation and thought-provoking dialogue. Probably not worth $15, but probably is worth your time.