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The titular witch

witch stranded review

witch stranded review

need to know

what is it? A new chain game that follows in the footsteps of Death Stranding.

release date July 7, 2022

developer weird scaffolding

Publisher modern wolf

audit date RTX 3080 Ti, Intel i7-8086K, 16GB RAM

multiplayer game? Do not

association Steam Page(opens in a new tab)

I don’t pay much attention to my humble mouse. Like the limb, I use it every day and struggle without it, but when was the last time I thought about it? I just keep it working except when I need to recharge. However, Witch Strandings puts the periphery front and center, making your cursor a hero, and with a few exceptions, the only way you can interact with a doomed world.

Back in 2019, when discussing the genre of Death Stranding, Hideo Kojima claimed it was something new: a stranded game. The defining feature of this new genre is building social connection, which in the case of Death Stranding is accomplished by delivering packages and connecting different communities of human survivors. Well, a mix of walking sims and community-minded games like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing.

(Image credit: Strange Scaffolding)

Despite being a short minimalist game in which you play as a little ball of light on a quest to save the forest and its frustrated critters from the witch’s curse, Witch Stranding is definitely Death Stranding’s brother sisters. These depressed critters, who were once humans, needed a friend, you see, for that friend to provide food and medicine to heal their ailments.

Complicating this task is the forest itself, as it desperately wants to kill you. Rapid currents, sharp thorns, fast sand and evil magic will stand in your way and hinder your progress in this haunting world. Then there’s calm water, mud and other terrain features that don’t get in your way but change the way you move. When moving through the water with the cursor, you will find yourself with less control than usual as you build up momentum and then continue to float forward even if you stop moving the mouse. Meanwhile, stuck in the mud, you’ll have to drag yourself out, pulling the mouse to free yourself.

Even without the elaborate 3D geometry and stumbling heroes of Death Stranding, it’s very effective at conveying the challenge of traversing rough terrain. And because every flick of the mouse turns you in that direction, you’re always connected to the world. It may be composed of 2D tiles, but this raw interactivity means it never feels like something tangible.

(Image credit: Strange Scaffolding)

There’s a lot of atmosphere in this lo-fi, abstract setting, and it’s impressive how ominous it all is. When I came across a hollow tree with a bunch of red skulls in it I found it would kill anyone I gifted them I felt like I was stuck at the scene of some ritual murder, buzzing Evil energy, instead of hanging out in a blocky circle surrounded by cartoon bones. Audio helps a lot, too, with the whimsical tunes that accompany your journey occasionally drowned out by the jarring noise superimposed on it.

These disturbing touches culminate in approaching the Witch’s Realm, a thorn-strewn promenade that seems to last forever, although it actually takes a minute to traverse. But in the context of this little game, it’s a chunk of hostile terrain, with menacing noises along the way.

mind Mapping

After spending hours exploring the forest, I no longer actually see the tiles, but transform them into bushes, swamps, and lakes, and then I need to find a path, or at least imagine what I can do with the right tools creation. Scattered around the forest are countless objects that resist the witch’s threat to you, turning the surrounding area into tiles of safety.

(Image credit: Strange Scaffolding)

Initially, you’ll need to drag these items one by one and store them in the most efficient location – this is how you deliver items to the unfortunate inhabitants of the forest. Conveniently, any item-neutralized areas remain clear even after you pick up the item, and water, quicksand, or anything else won’t return until you drop it into a new area. Eventually, you’ll get some storage space where you can store items for later use — a rare moment when you’ll be using the keyboard, pressing G, not the mouse, meaning you can carry two at a time.

Adding a simple inventory block feels like a really meaningful upgrade by letting you drag things around for most of the game. It empowers like a flashy new ability or complex system, instantly making it so easy to deliver and explore, which in turn makes you feel more capable and confident.

Once I created a permanent path through the obstacles and carved the map into my mind, I was racing wildly around the world. After a few hours of caution, I was free to indulge myself, waving my mouse like a madman. When I tore open the forest, the forest was a blur, laughing in the face of danger. That’s why I found myself drowning in the middle of a lake that I accidentally plunged into. Of course, that’s partly because of my own recklessness, but Stranded Witch had to take some of the blame.

(Image credit: Strange Scaffolding)

See, the screen only moves when you’re close to the top or bottom edge, so it’s hard to know what’s in front of you. This is probably by design to retain some mystique, but this limitation doesn’t exist when your view changes earlier when you move left or right. This gets even more annoying when you factor in the large health bar at the bottom of the screen and the frequent notifications you get at the top, obscuring your vision considerably. If you zoom in, you can pull back to see more of your surroundings, and I found myself playing almost exactly that way – but I still had to get close to the edge to start seeing what was coming.

Finding new routes on the map and opening up previously blocked off areas gave me a lovely serotonin boost, but I found myself less interested in my actual mission. Abandoned notes and descriptions of destroyed buildings – I should add, can be rebuilt, increase your health, give you convenient fast travel options – and sad animals are both evocatively written, each one feels like Fragments of tragic biographies or historical accounts, but they are all brief and mysterious and will never resonate with you more.

(Image credit: Strange Scaffolding)

I like Frog the most, but that’s because I meet my amphibian friends more often than others, and they usually need items that are more readily available from that location to cheer them up more easily. I didn’t learn more about them and didn’t make some kind of connection, verbal or otherwise. It’s just a frog that used to be a human, and I gave them food and drinks a few times. It ended up destroying the premise – I was never really encouraged to care about these characters I intended to help.

However, minimalism works in its favor for the most part, elegantly displaying the backbone of this nascent genre without the numerous complex systems seen in Death Stranding. I scoffed when Kojima started to position it as the vanguard of a new genre. Now that I’m seeing it again in such a different style, but obviously still in the same game series, I’m even more convinced. I want to see more.

Disclosure: Strange Scaffold’s creative director Xalavier Nelson Jr. has previously contributed to PC Gamer.

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Bart Thompson
Bart is esports.com.tn's List Writer . He is from Houston, Texas, and is currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in creative writing, majoring in non-fiction writing. He likes to play The Elder Scrolls Online and learn everything about The Elder Scrolls series.