WitchWay

WitchWay is an aptly aesthetic puzzle/platformer game created by four friends, Andrew Gleeson, Henri Rochefort, Niilo Takalainen, and Nathan Antony, that was originally released in 2017. Of the reviews I've found in my minimal research, people seem to be in agreement that the game is very cute and very fun. The only real description of the game on the Itch.io page is the one line "Find your wand, save the bunnies and solve your way out of the well!" and honestly? That's exactly what this turned out to be.

I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting going into this game. I had vaguely understood what a platformer was from my brother's many attempts to get me to understand Gamer Speak™, but the idea of puzzle games is something I am very familiar with.

Still, the additions of witch aesthetics and bunnies definitly sold me on this game before I even started. The posted playtime listed is two and a half hours and honestly, I went for way longer and would probably play again.

So, after confusidly having to download an updated version of software I didn't realize I already had, I tried to make some bunny friends.

The game starts in an odd stone room with a starting platform and a couple of crates. You, the Character, The Witch, are an adorable sprite figure wearing a witch hat. After being confused about how the mechanics of the game worked for about five minutes, but refusing to ask for help this early in, I figured out how to jump. This skill is going to become very important very quickly.

So, from this point, the puzzles presented aren't yet difficult. You're really just trying to get from room to room and, in my case, figure out how exactly things work and what buttons to push for what action. It's a lot of jumping, and pushing crates around for the first few floors. Fun fact, though, holding the arrow keys does move the camera.

The wand comes in a lot earlier than I was expecting and was very fun to figure out. More than that though, it definitly made me worried there was going to be some kind of enemy character coming up in the near future when I found out it shot out a thing. Thankfully, that turned out to not be the case.

Instead, it lets you possess the blocks.

Now that line really makes no sense when I read it back. But! That's honestly what you're doing. You possess certain blocks! To do your bidding! They can even jump the same way you do! I don't have the ability to make gifs to show you the possessed blocks, but if I did there would be quite a few in this post!!

If it wasn't obvious before, I spent way too long freaking out over this before actually utilizing this new skill. It comes in very handy and makes solving some of the puzzles much easier in the long run.

On that note, can we just appreciate how cute these mushrooms are? You don't interact with them, they're just in the background, but they're just so cute. And they're everywhere! 10/10! I am here for these funky little shrooms!

Of course, as with most things, the further you get along in the map, the more difficult things become. After all, those wall eyes see into your intentions and designate where you can walk. Listen to the Eyes.

Those thorns are not your friends.

But, between button platforms and evolving game mechanics, there's also the objective. Save The Bunnies.

The farther you go, there's less plain stone rooms and much more grass and mushrooms and thorns. The harder it gets, the more vegitation there is (Correction: I am wrong.) And of course, this leads to another thing.

The Bunnies.

It took me an entire hour to get to the point in the game where the Bunnies start to show up. An Hour. Now, granted, I spent a lot of that time freaking out about things, but that does not take away from the fact that I solved puzzles for An Hour and I can't even pet the Bunny. It's behind a wall.

Did discovering this fact effectivly end my first session of playing this game? Yes, it did.

Did I pick it right back up the next day after work? Absolutely.

I don't know if this was the developers' intention, I really doubt it was, but at that point, my sole motivation for playing this game was no longer an interest in creating content for this blog, or to work my way through the almost two thousand games in this list. No, it was to get to The Bunnies. The game's Itch.io page has a gif of the Witch getting a Bunny in her hat.

I need this.

To say the least, I did end up needing to cap myself. Only an hour after work before I needed to do my class work and other adult things. As great of a strategy as this was on paper, this does also mean that I played almost seven hours of this game.

And normally, I'd say I'm pretty good at puzzles. Even to the point where I do them for fun in my free time, I have a million Rubix Cubes and Star Puzzles to atest to this. Alas, this did not stop me from dying fourty billion times when the LAZERS were introduced!!

LAZERS!!

To wrap up though, I've rarely devoted seven hours of my life to anything. Let alone a game. But I guess I'm starting to understand how some people can spend all day on these kinds of things. WitchWay is incredibly fun. And, after some initial fumbling, ended up being a relativly easy game to menouver around. Even for me, a complete novice.

This whole experience was super cute. And it involved two of my favorite things, Witches and Bunnies. Adding in just how great the actual graphics themselves look? Just, amazing.

The Witch is adorable. The Mushrooms are hecking cute. The Bunnies are the best motivation. And I'm just hoping all of the developers are living their best lives.

Also, I did get a Bunny.

And as a final note, before I began playing WitchWay, I read through the two devlogs on Itch.io's site for the game. It's been quite some time since the last one was posted and I'm very sure that Mr. Gleeson, or any of the other developers, won't ever see this, but this also goes to whoever else got this far and is reading this too. Don't ever be sorry for prioritizing your mental health. Projects can be put down, and if your interests fall somewhere else? Don't be afraid to go create over there.

Alright. That's enough from me.

Goodnight.