The woods are lovely dark and deep but also not doing too well because of the Witch darkening its heart. The paths through the forest are closed and its inhabitants hungry, confused, or sick, and with nobody to help there’s almost no other course but to wither slowly away. The heart of the woods has one last thing it can do, though, and that’s create an agent that can travel the broken paths and bring healing to all its inhabitants.
Witch Strandings is a unique little game where you play a light traversing a top-down view of a broken forest, with each tile being a type of terrain ranging from standard landscape to floaty water to deadly thorns. you’re able to pick up and move things around, such as the mushrooms that turn thorn tiles into regular earth, and the goal is to help as many creatures as possible while making your way to the Witch on the far edge of the woods. (Also- Every single witch/pagan I’ve ever known would be at the forest trying to fix things, quite possibly by overdoing the crystals or tarot cards and most likely dancing naked under the moon but also, most importantly, doing the work to help.) The entire game is controlled exclusively with the mouse, using its smooth motion to zip over normal tiles, move carefully through quicksand, or guide the drifting mote of light through water. Hovering the mote over things and creatures gives a brief description while clicking gets more detailed information, and click-hold lets you carry things around. The trick is to explore and learn the map, finding where stashes food or curatives are and bringing items to where they’re needed to clear out new paths. The story slowly fills in as new areas open up, and it doesn’t take meeting more than a creature or two to realize the forest is more than it initially seems.
A strange game warrants a strange trailer, and Witch Strandings delivers with the release trailer below. Give it a watch and mind the woods, because things get a little off-kilter in its heart. Currently Witch Strandings isexclusive to Steam.
