Yes, that’s right.

The larger, more forceful your swipes are, for example, the faster you move across the screen.

Cursed by the titular witch, this foreboding landscape is not a happy place.

A spirit encounters a raccoon called Roland in Witch Strandings

Heather the rabbit is trying to believe in brighter days.

Bahar the owl is just trying to catch up on some sleep.

I should mention, you don’t have to help these animals if you don’t want to.

Cover image for YouTube video

You don’thaveto save this forest at all.

For my part, I enjoyed the game’s playful tension between hopeless despair and cautious optimism.

At first glance, it does an amazing job to make you feel out of your depth.

A ball of light flies through a cursed forest in Witch Strandings

It’s worth sticking around in the forest once you’ve actually dealt with the witch, too.

So I think I’ll be sticking around a little while longer in this strange, haunted woodland.

A ball of light encounters a squirrel called Chad Shakespeare in Witch Strandings.

A scroll unfurls across a screen of purple tiles in Witch Strandings