The story of a young witch who, accompanied by a talking hat, goes to a small town to practise her craft, did not leave me indifferent.
I’ve played Little Witch in the Woods for 30 hours now and have struggled to find the time to share my impressions. Well, it seems that after many years, the beloved Stardew Valley has finally found a worthy rival.
Witchcraft Practice
Ellie has just graduated from witch school, but her training is not over yet: the girl still has to complete a three-year apprenticeship — helping people, brewing potions and taking care of the town that the authorities have chosen for her.
It’s surprising that Ellie was entrusted with such a task, considering all her mischief: arson, explosions, and breaking into the headmaster’s office. It’s even more surprising that she managed to graduate from school with honours.
But Ellie was not destined to arrive in Hailion. First, the train broke down in the middle of the forest, and when the young witch decided to stretch her legs and take a walk, the train left without her. Ellie is not too upset about this. First, she found a very beautiful glowing tree in the wilderness that she wants to study. Secondly, deep in the forest, she discovered an abandoned witch’s hut with a pile of equipment and interesting books. How could a young talent pass this up?
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After wandering around the neighbourhood, Ellie realises that the neighbouring village has been taken over by strange thorny vines. All this sounds much more interesting than boring practice in Hailion, so the witch decides to stay. And at the same time, she decides to start her own practice: studying plants and local animals, brewing potions and helping the locals cope with their troubles.
Young Naturalist Club
But she has to start small — by repairing her witch’s equipment. Ellie doesn’t quite understand how to do this without money or skills, but coincidentally, a travelling merchant has just arrived in the village and desperately needs help to get rid of a curse. Rolling up her sleeves, Ellie opens her encyclopaedia, prepares a quill and ink, and sets off into the dense forest in search of ingredients.
While exploring the forest, Ellie can take out her book of knowledge at any time and make notes about animals or plants. This adds new information to the encyclopaedia: properties, habitats, habits, and methods of capture. It’s a paradise for perfectionists who want to fill the encyclopaedia and get the highest score, even if it takes several hours to catch rare animals.
This is partly due to the controls, which make no sense: confirmation with Z, movement with the arrow keys, acceleration with the space bar, calling up the log with D… The first thing I did was go into the settings, but when I saw how many keys I would have to reassign, I got used to the local layout after all.
Every creature and plant in the forest is unique. Some animals can only be found at night, others have to be sneaked up on with a net, and others need to be sprayed with a special potion before they can be caught. It already sounds quite complicated, and with the dynamic change of day and night and the stamina bar, each hunt takes quite a long time. But this is only the first stage, because then Ellie has to go down to the basement of the witch’s house and start making potions.
The Witch’s Rescue Service
While Ellie can still manage with the small vines, it will take a lot of effort to cleanse the entire village of the curse. She must explore the forest in search of secret passages, solve puzzles, pave the way with brewed potions, and, of course, establish contact with the locals. At first, only three creatures live in the village called Vistelia: the restless fox cub Rubrum with his grandmother and Arden, the grumpy tavern owner.
