REKA Review Summary

Engaging, relaxing, promising gameplay: The game is praised for its engaging and relaxing gameplay, offering a unique experience with a lot of potential. Players find it easy to pick up and play, with intuitive mechanics and a non-stressful pace. The developers are responsive and dedicated, actively working with the community to improve the game and add new content, making it a worthwhile early access title.

Immersive Slavic folklore atmosphere: The game excels in its immersive atmosphere, drawing heavily from Slavic folklore and mythology. Players experience a cozy, witchy world filled with interesting characters like Baba Yaga and Leshy, set in beautifully rendered environments with a complementary soundtrack. This creates a relaxing and captivating experience, especially appealing to those interested in Slavic culture and witchy themes.

Beautiful and unique art style: The game features a unique and beautiful art style, with stunning visuals, atmospheric lighting, and a complementary soundtrack. The graphics evoke a cozy and slightly eerie vibe, reminiscent of Slavic fairy tales, while the music enhances the immersive experience. This combination creates a captivating and relaxing world for players to explore.

Extensive house building/customization: Players can build and customize their own unique, mobile witch house, collecting decorations, adopting pets, and designing the interior to their liking. The building mechanics are intuitive and offer extensive freedom, allowing for creative expression and a personalized gameplay experience. This feature is a major highlight for many players, providing hours of engaging content.

Engaging story and characters: The game features well-written characters and an engaging storyline that captivates players. The character creation system allows for customization, and the dialogue is well-done, adding to the immersive quality of the game. The world-building is also well-executed, creating a rich and detailed setting for players to explore.

Numerous bugs hinder gameplay: The game is plagued with numerous bugs and glitches that significantly impact gameplay. These include crashes, softlocks, broken quests, graphical issues, and problems with building mechanics. Many reviewers mention that these issues make the game feel unpolished and barely playable, even for an early access title.

Lacks content, repetitive gameplay: Many reviewers feel the game lacks sufficient content, with a short main story and repetitive side quests. The world feels empty, and the gameplay loop becomes stale quickly. This is a common complaint, especially considering the game's price point and early access status.

Clunky, unintuitive building system: The building system is clunky, unintuitive, and frustrating to use. Reviewers specifically mention difficulties with roof placement, object rotation, and overall control. This makes building houses, a core element of the game, a tedious and unenjoyable experience.

Bugged, repetitive, confusing quests: Many reviewers report issues with quests, including broken quests, repetitive side quests, and the inability to revisit previous locations. Quest markers are often missing or bugged, making it difficult to track progress and complete objectives. These issues disrupt the player's sense of progression and immersion.

Generic, lifeless NPCs/villages: NPCs lack personality and unique design, making villages feel lifeless and interactions repetitive. Quests from villagers are often simple fetch tasks with little narrative depth. This lack of engaging content and character development detracts from the overall experience.

Completing quests for villagers: Players engage in quests, often involving cooking and resource gathering for villagers. These quests provide rewards and contribute to the game's progression, but some reviewers found them repetitive. Some quests require specific food 'sweet' or 'spicy' without proper indication.

Procedurally generated sandbox exploration: The game features a sandbox mode with procedurally generated maps that offer exploration, resource gathering, and quests. While this provides replayability, some reviewers found the environments and quests repetitive after extended play. The game world is navigated by walking around until prompted to move to the next level.

Playing as witch apprentice: Players assume the role of a witch apprentice under Baba Yaga, learning magic and interacting with folklore elements. However, some reviewers noted that the game focuses more on resource gathering than actual spellcasting or witchy activities. The game allows players to choose their witch archetype.

Incomplete main storyline: The main storyline is currently incomplete, with the initial chapters serving as a tutorial before transitioning to the sandbox mode. Some reviewers felt the story lacked a compelling narrative or clear player motivation. The story progresses in stages, avoiding unnecessary filler or empty dialogues.

Simple crafting system: Crafting is simple and straightforward, often involving combining three ingredients to create food items. Players can discover new recipes and cosmetics through experimentation. Easy material gathering makes doing quests more fun.

Poor optimization causes performance issues: The game suffers from significant optimization issues, resulting in low frame rates, stuttering, lag, and crashes on various hardware configurations, even those exceeding recommended specs. Many reviewers reported that performance was worse than expected, with some comparing it unfavorably to other demanding titles. Some reviewers noted that the developers are aware of the issues and are working on improvements.

Runs smoothly on some systems: Some reviewers reported smooth performance and no bugs on their PCs. This suggests that the game's performance may vary depending on the hardware configuration.

Terrain generation visual glitches: Some reviewers reported visual glitches related to terrain generation, such as floating objects and landscapes with vertical steps or cliffs. These issues detract from the game's visual presentation and can break immersion.

Incomplete controller support: Some reviewers reported issues with controller support, such as the menu not registering controller input or the game lacking full controller support. This forces players to switch to mouse control for certain actions.

Limited graphics/audio options: Some reviewers noted a lack of graphics settings and limited music/sound effects. This suggests that the game may lack customization options and audio polish.

Promising, but needs polish: The game shows promise but needs polish. Many reviewers recommend waiting for updates due to bugs, limited content, and performance issues, while others suggest buying early to support development, acknowledging its unfinished state. Save issues are a recurring problem that prevents players from progressing.

Cozy, witchy, Slavic-inspired gameplay: The game is praised for its cozy, witchy themes and unique setting inspired by Slavic folklore. Reviewers recommend it to players who enjoy building, decorating, exploring, and collecting, especially those interested in Baba Yaga lore and creating a magical life in nature.

Relaxing and cozy experience: The game is often described as relaxing, cozy, and stress-free, making it suitable for casual play and unwinding. Its go-at-your-own-pace gameplay and absence of survival elements contribute to a chill and immersive experience, perfect for autumn evenings.

Anticipation for future content: Many reviewers express excitement for future updates, content additions, and the full release of the game. They are eager to see the story progress, new features added, and the game reach its full potential, indicating a positive outlook despite current limitations.

Recommended for niche interests: Reviewers recommend the game to players with specific interests, such as witchy themes, Slavic folklore, exploration, and unique mechanics. The game's magical vibe, soothing music, and nature-focused gameplay create an immersive experience for those seeking something different.

Early Access, more content planned: The game is in Early Access, with limited content currently available. Players anticipate future updates that will expand the story, add new features, and address bugs. The main quest currently ends with the second map.

Unique atmosphere, crafting, and building: The game has a unique and appealing atmosphere, blending cozy and dark elements. It features resource gathering, crafting, building mechanics, and exploration, with a focus on creating a home and interacting with villages.

Baba Yaga and witch apprentice: The player character is a witch apprentice to Baba Yaga, traveling in a house with chicken legs. The game revolves around influencing villagers and embracing witchy themes in a dark cottagecore setting.

Committed players, excited for updates: Reviewers express commitment to playing the game long-term and are excited for future updates. Some have been following the game's development for years and participated in beta tests, indicating a strong interest in its progress.

Storyline feels unfinished: One reviewer found it difficult to immerse himself in the game without a background story for the female lead character. Another reviewer noted that the storyline was unfinished at the time of review, with only the first two chapters available.