REKA Game Review: Witchcraft Adventure That’s Not Quite Ready Yet

REKA is a new indie game from Emberstorm Entertainment that’s sure to capture the attention of cosy gamers with its enchanting premise. This charming, whimsical base-building game promises a lot with its unique blend of resource gathering, crafting, and exploration. However, as it currently stands in Early Access, REKA has quite a long way to go before becoming the immersive, polished experience players hope for.

Entering REKA’s Magical World

In REKA, you take on the role of Reka, a young witch-in-training, exploring a village nestled in a bewitched forest. The game immediately establishes a soothing atmosphere, filled with autumnal vibes, reminiscent of cosy titles like Animal Crossing and Fatum Betula. The art direction, somewhere between cell-shading and low-poly, draws you in with its quirky and charming aesthetic, though the unfinished state of the game leaves much to be desired.

The environment feels alive with the potential for a deeper, more immersive experience once the game reaches its full development. Unfortunately, the Early Access version offers little more than a barebones introduction to the world, which quickly runs out of content after a short 90-minute playthrough.

A Game That’s Too Early for Early Access

While some Early Access games come out swinging with enough content to keep players engaged for hours, REKA is not one of them. As delightful as the concept and world design might be, there’s simply not enough gameplay to justify its current state. It feels more like a tech demo or proof of concept than a game that’s ready for public consumption.

Don’t get me wrong REKA shows plenty of promise. The idea of roaming through an enchanted forest, gathering resources, and crafting potions in your very own chicken legged house is a delightful one. But with broken animations, janky mechanics, and a glaring lack of polish, it’s hard to recommend the game as it is.

Animation Woes: Breaking the Spell

A major gripe with REKA is the unpolished and unfinished animation. Whether you’re running, casting spells, or even just walking, every movement feels stilted and awkward. In a game with no combat, these small details matter even more. Fluid, satisfying animations could elevate the gameplay, providing that much-needed serotonin boost from simple tasks. However, REKA’s current animations do the opposite, often taking players out of the experience.

The game is visually riding on its charming art style, but the lack of weight and polish in the animations keeps it from delivering a truly magical experience. As REKA progresses through development, this will need to be a top priority if it hopes to maintain player engagement.

A Quiet Village with Little to Say

One thing REKA does well is create a quiet, mysterious atmosphere that fits its cozy, slow-paced narrative. Reka, the protagonist, doesn’t speak much, and the story unfolds gradually through interactions with the villagers and the environment. While this approach could work well for a more finished game, the lack of depth in the current version leaves much to be desired.

The villagers themselves are static, expressionless characters who resemble wooden dolls more than living, breathing people. This may be a stylistic choice, but it detracts from the overall immersion. Hopefully, future updates will bring these NPCs to life with improved dialogue, animations, and facial expressions.

Baba Yaga: The Witchy Mentor You Didn’t Expect

One of the game’s standout moments comes when you meet Baba Yaga, the legendary witch of Slavic folklore. Baba Yaga serves as your mentor, guiding you through a series of tasks and rituals in the forest. The reveal of her iconic chicken-legged house is a delightful moment, even if the animations surrounding it leave much to be desired.

Becoming Baba Yaga’s apprentice is a key plot point, and while it’s a concept filled with potential, the execution falls flat in the Early Access build. Completing tasks for her like gathering bones for a ritual feels more tedious than magical, thanks to the game’s clunky mechanics.

Gameplay: The Magic of Gathering and Crafting

At its core, REKA is a resource-gathering and crafting game. You’ll explore the enchanted forest, collecting items like berries, honey, and wheat, which you can then use to create potions, perform rituals, and craft decorations for your home. The gathering mechanics are fairly simple you hold down a button to summon magical ravens, who will collect items for you.

Crafting and potion-making are central to the gameplay, though there isn’t much variety in the Early Access version. You’ll complete small tasks for the villagers, like moving pumpkins or finding a lost goat, but the quests quickly become repetitive and uninspired.

Building Your Own Chicken-Legged House: A Dream or a Nightmare?

One of REKA’s most intriguing features is the ability to build and customize your own walking house, just like Baba Yaga’s. This is where the game’s cozy base-building elements come into play. You can collect materials from the forest and use them to build your house brick by brick, board by board.

In theory, this sounds like a dream for players who love games like Fallout 4 or The Sims. In practice, however, REKA’s building system is one of the worst I’ve ever encountered in a game. The controls are unresponsive, the menus are clunky, and placing objects where you want them is an exercise in frustration. It’s a far cry from the polished building mechanics we’ve come to expect from modern games.

Performance Issues: Crashes and Freezes Galore

Even if you’re willing to overlook the janky mechanics, you’ll likely run into some serious performance issues. On a high-end gaming rig with an RTX 3080 and a Ryzen 7 5800x, I experienced multiple crashes to the desktop, including one while navigating the game’s already frustrating building menus.

While I didn’t notice any frame rate drops, the frequent freezing makes it clear that REKA is still very much in an unstable state. The game is also not yet playable on the Steam Deck, though the developers hope to have it verified by the time it hits full release.

A Promising Future (With Some Big Caveats)

Despite all its current shortcomings, I can see a bright future for REKA if Emberstorm Entertainment can address the numerous issues plaguing the game. The concept is solid, the art direction is charming, and there’s a lot of potential for this to become a beloved cosy game. However, in its current state, REKA is far too early in development to be worth your time or money.

If you’re intrigued by the idea of becoming a witch-in-training under Baba Yaga’s tutelage, I recommend keeping REKA on your Wishlist for now. There’s a cosy, magical game in here somewhere, but it needs more time to brew before it’s ready for release.

Final Thoughts: Should You Buy REKA in Early Access?

At this stage, REKA is not a game I can recommend buying in Early Access. It’s simply too unfinished, with a lack of content, broken mechanics, and numerous performance issues. However, if you’re a fan of cosy, slow-paced games and don’t mind waiting for updates, there’s potential here for something special down the line.

In its current form, REKA feels like an alpha test rather than a full-fledged Early Access game. Hopefully, with time, the developers can deliver on the game’s promising premise and turn it into the witchy, enchanting experience players are hoping for. For now, though, it’s best to hold off and wait for future updates.