‘Witch Strandings’ – An Arduous Journey With Your Computer Mouse

Witch Strandings is filled with many dangerous, challenging paths, and you’ll feel the weight of every difficult step thanks to some crafty use of mouse movement.

As a little strand of light, you’re not the most powerful force in the forest. There’s many dangers that are ready to swallow you up in darkness. Even when you’re not in danger, the walk ahead of you is taxing. You’ll need to tiptoe across quicksand and fight against deadly currents to get anywhere. A bit of mud can see you stuck, struggling to get out. Things are difficult here no matter which direction you go. But you’re not the only thing suffering in this place, as there are many miserable animals who could use some help and company. If you can make the journey and bring them healing supplies, perhaps you can lighten their load, and in doing so make your own life feel a bit brighter.

But as I said, it isn’t easy. You’ll have to give a few sharp tugs with your mouse if you’re going to get yourself out of a patch of mud. If you stumble into some water, your controls get a little bit imprecise as you fight the current. You’ll really need to hunker down over your mouse as you sneak across patches of quicksand. That’s all assuming you don’t blunder into the hostile thorns and other nasty things a witch has placed to stop your progress. These intricate mouse movements communicate the physical difficulty of the journey in some compelling ways that certain extremely high-budget strand games didn’t make me feel. It’s beyond impressive just how much these mouse movements make you feel like a part of the journey.

Witch Strandings is a clever experience that really drags you into the taxing nature of your adventure, and in doing so made me feel more involved in its outcome. I really wanted to help the creatures here and beat the witch, which is quite impressive for a game that is largely tiles and text.

Witch Strandings is available now on Steam.