Wicked Witches

Not worth the time/money.

Cute yet delightfully wicked. :)

Wicked Witches is a childrens game with a different look, and a great concept. All people in the game, including your black cat looks like creepy wax figures, witch i find glorious and fits in the games atmosphere.
Every map in the game is about collecting scream-points of a sort, and pretty much ruin the people and the buildings in the village.

Good Stuff:

- When playing the game, you are able to fly around with your broom, wich is aweome in my opinion. Though, when flying the broom you don't follow your mouse direction, but fly up with your Q button, and automatically flies down again.
- When choosing a village, you can scry in the crystalball, wich gives the atmosphere of being a wich.
- The game let's you prepare yourself for the battle to come, by letting you choose from many various spells, that you can unlock by playing the games may maps that you also unlock in time.

Not very good stuff:

- The game is filled with glitches, that makes you able to fly through some buildings, or even through the ground. Not very good ...
- The dialogs is without voice-acting, wich i find just fine. But when talking to another, they use the horrible do-not-fit-in-any-game-at-all word: LOL.
It's not once, not twice but many times!
- Even though you have many spells to choose between, they are not explained very well. You don't know how much it deals of damage, or if it even deals damage, or other effects. That's a shame ...
- The game simply needs more freedom. You cannot do much more than choosing a destination and choose your spells you want to destroy the poor people with. Well ... you can also look on a cauldren, but it does absolutely nothing ... So you can't brew potions in this game.
- If you choose to play a map more than once, then every time win, you will get the news: You have unlocked a new spell!
But when taking a look at your spells, there are no new spells, other than the one you have already unlocked in that map. Disapointing ...
- The price for the game is too high. There is not enough content to even be close to reach 9,99€ not even mentioning the hey-look-at-me-i'm-flying-through-a-tower glitch.
- The maps in the game looks like a spore map, wich i have not figured out if is negative or positive.

So taking a look at all the nonsense and horrible english i have written above, then i don't recommend this game. Too expensive and too many glitches. Its a shame really, cause this game has a lot of potential to become great.

Wicked Witches, developed by Ectoplasm Studios, is a third-person shooter in which players take on the role of a witch (obviously). After being falsely accused of witchcraft, our heroine is banished from her village. In retaliation, she decides to become a REAL witch, heart-set on stealing the lives from those who stole hers. On paper, this sounds like a promising concept. It isn’t often we get to rewrite some of history’s oldest fairy tales. Only this time, you’re the villain.

However, despite the appealing premise, I had built up some general expectations. It’s clearly intended for younger audiences, but that doesn’t give ANY game the excuse for poor quality. For example, look at the first LEGO games. Whether you’re ten or thirty-two, it can be enjoyed by anyone. So, pandering to a demographic that isn’t my own doesn’t give this game the benefit of the doubt, at least not in this case.

We’ll start with graphics. I’d call them mediocre at best. It’s got this odd design I can only compare to papier-mâché. Thankfully, this game is flushed with colors (for the most part), which makes up for the… uncomfortable character models. They aren’t bad, just… uncomfortable. It’s really the best way I can describe it. Looking at them for too long makes me fidget in my seat.

But, as you probably know, video games aren’t worth a bucket of warm spit without proper gameplay, and my first impressions of Wicked Witches weren’t half bad. You’re primary goal is to kill as many villagers as possible as you complete your various objectives. It plays like a horde shoot em’ up, and it’s a pretty satisfying experience… at first.

There's are multiple spells to unlock, different abilities to master, and to top it off, you can even fly about on your broomstick! Raining fiery meteors of destruction down on fleeing villagers really instills a feeling of power. You’re also capable of “enchanting” certain objects throughout each level. These vary from trees to graveyards to unicorns. Whatever the player enchants will help them on the battlefield. Building up an army of monstrous trees and undead skeletons is pretty cool.

So, after all this praise, you might be wondering why I’m giving this game and thumbs down. Well, here’s why. Despite its achievements, Wicked Witches is tremendously flawed. All the gameplay mechanics mentioned previously are repeated throughout the entirety of this game. You’ll be spamming the left mouse button for the duration of each level, wiping out mindless waves of enemies in a cycle that has no end. Spells hardly vary from one another, as they all work identically; whether it’s exploding pumpkins, cauldrons or meteors, they all provide the same damage and outcome.

Clipping is a serious issue. Enemy projectiles will soar directly through structures, and same goes for your own projectiles. Hell, if you really want to, hop on your broomstick and faze through just about anything! It’s INCREDIBLY lazy game design.

Lastly, I want to talk about the writing, and oh my god, you will cringe like you’ve never cringed before. It’s one of those things you’ll have to see to believe. I’ll spare you the details, but the term “LOL” is used quite often. Yeah, it’s THAT bad.

If you’re over the age of twelve and plan on buying Wicked Witches for your own amusement, I say pass. There are a lot more enjoyable things you can do with your time. If you’re looking for a game to give your kid, this isn’t the worst choice, but trust me, you’re kid deserves better.

Wicked Witches...Wicked Good Fun! That's right...Wreak havoc on those unsuspecting Townies! Destroy EVERYTHING and ANYONE who dares to stands in your evil-doing ways! Stike with Deadly Chain Lightening, Evil Spells and a Fireball or two from hell, just for Good Measure! Ride your broom high and low!...In short, you'll have a flipping blast! You won't need a RL 'Pyewacket the cat' to help out on missions or to have fun in this game. This evil Witch comes with her very own Demonic cat, (who's just as evil as their Wicked Witch Mommy!) Two Cat's Paws up on this one, guys!...Enjoy the game!

Pros:
+unique style
+interesting concepts and ideas
+responsive controls
+can do cool witchy things like turn trees into minions and fly on a broomstick

Cons:
-unfinished/buggy
-repetitive
-no balance. no skill required. combat gets old fast. no challenge = no real reason to play
-doesn't look like this game will get an update ever
-a variety of spells that lack a variety of play style/use
-an incomplete game being sold as complete
-that god awful border around the screen (no seriously, why is that there? it's incredibly ugly and distracting)

First, let me just say that I generally prefer supporting smaller devs & businesses where I can. Besides the fact that this game has a lot of ideas that appeal to me, I wanted to support a game that is so clearly an underdog.

This game has some terrific concepts, fun ideas, and charm. Except there's one issue with it: it's not finished.
I think the devs have some great ideas and a solid foundation to build something extraodinary on. "flawed but fun" is a very very generous way to describe this game. It's easy. There's no challenge. Spells have no cooldowns, enemies have no weaknesses/strengths to adapt to - so just pick wichever spell you want to, and spam it until everything's dead. Chances are, you won't die in the process.

Bugs. Bugs galore. Enemies getting stuck in things. Floating enemies running on the spot continuously. flying and randomly getting stick in a tree that visually wasn't there a second ago. scream points that won't collect (spoiler: they need to be collected) movement and jump animations look broken. Granted, the controls are pretty tight, but everything still looks disjointed.

That this game has so few reviews but most of them are positive, is highly suspect.

One look at the forum, and seeing the complete lack of response from the devs from questions tells me one thing: this game is as it is and won't be any more than that. Which is a SHAME because with a bit more polish, balance, and detail, this could have been great.

But I honestly don't feel it's fair to sell this as a completed game when it so clearly isn't. There are good ideas here, and while the execution isn't poor, it's not finished. And honestly, who wants to play a game where your dominant thought is "what could have been..." instead of enjoying the actual game you're playing. I pay for a product, not potential. And I write this with the consumer in mind.

I will be refunding this. in a few months or so, if they've updated and fixed this game at all, I'd consider purchasing it again. But something tells me this game will stay as it is. I hope I'm proven wrong.

This game is an early access game. Good idea but bad gameplay and ultra buggy. If someone would take this and work on it more it could be a good and fun game, right now it's fun for 20 minutes and has nothing to offer after that.

Horrible camera angles, geometric shapes signifying you're flying off the screen, and extremely clunky controls with an annoying cat that keeps saying to follow it. Since it's hard to see where the cat goes, I never made it to town! I would NOT recommend this game.

What can be said about Wicked Witches? put simply, alot...

Wicked witches has a great concept for playing the bad guy(GIRL). It has flavour, aesthetic and enjoyable game play mechanics with childrens fairy tales from a sinister perspective.

However, it feels very unpolished for being released, there is a lot of UI bugs, multiple grammatical errors in scripting (Grammer nazis be warned) and the narrative plot seems very.... bare. Quite simply, it has a quick and understandable backstory, but a lot of the plot feels more like "I don't like this, destroy that", but this game is about vengeance aganinst the world so why not destroy everything.

To Praise:
- well thought out environment features, destructible buildings and morphable environments
- fun character & weapon design
- every little detail the game devs worked on

Things of note:
- again, UI errors, some grammer issues in script...
- some effects like the building destruction fire can cause serious lag when enmasse, AKA The Witch of Bellechasse level with three towns, lots of destroyed buildings fires = lots of CPU used creating lag
- unit damage ratios and health, it's usually easy to die, implementing a difficulty setting that affects health and damage ratios wouldn't hurt the game for different player types.

Overall, this game gets a praise from me as it was just plain silly fun and I had a blast playing through destroying the peasant rabble. Definantly worth a play for gamers that like the reverse role and want to see the world BURN!!!

See how we did here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5IMBmwI3bM

You can find my full Video Review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N-FWGggbN8&feature=youtu.be Despite some minor issues I really like this game. let me start this review by pointing out what I feel Ectoplasm studio got right with this game.
The Pros

-Price
-The characters are fun, cute, and memorable
-The gameplay is smooth and easy to understand
-Terrifying and slaying droves of humans is fun
-Destroying Fairytales is funner
-Powering up the Witch is done in a very traditional way, but someone it feels fresh.
-The odd combination of Cute and Creepy and bright colors contrasted by dark shadows is really nice to look at.
-Great Art work
-The flight system is another really smooth part of the game.
-Cool Music, makes you think of the Tower of Terror ride
-it's one of those games that is hard to classify ( in a good way )
-what is not awesome about making plants do your bidding, or enchanting a graveyard to summon undead minions for you, or turning Rainbow Shooting unicorns into Fire stomping horses to slay your enemies?

BONUS POINTS FOR!
-The little things... The way the characters follow your cursor with their heads and eyes, I had them nodding in time to the music for a few minutes before I realized I was actually not playing the game.

The Cons
~Still Some glitches with basic things, no sound effects in the opening parts of the game just music... Maybe there is not supposed to be?
~Unclear on what awards 1,2,or 3 pumpkin completion.
~I had a major issue with Jumping. The main one being when you jump right before you decent from the apex of the jump, you just instantly end up on the ground, it makes jumping something you really do not want to do.
~Developer assumes people have a brain and do not need more instruction. For those of us that are Undead or simply don't have a brain, or forgot to put it in our heads when we woke up, some simple instructions on how to change spells, etc would be nice. Although it is pretty easy to figure out Mouse Wheel up or Down or just use the numbers on your keyboard.
~Would also be nice to have a legend that you can look at to see what keys do what.
~It is a little unclear on how you get new spells, they just seem to appear. It would be nice to have to work for them, or to have to achieve certain sub objectives to unlock them, and perhaps there is, but if so, that is also unclear.
~To much up time on Broom flying makes it easy to exploit what is mainly ground enemies.
~All spells are unlimted and do not have a CD. Unlimited ammo would be fine, so would no CD on spells, but when you combine those 2 the game becomes a little easy not having to manage your resources you can just spam everything.

Overall
Wicked Witches is a really fun and refreshing title, It's not to hard, even the hard missions, but it does get challenging. I really like it when a developer makes something that is "their" game, and they do not try and make it compete with an already over saturated market. This game definitely feels like something personal to someone, and that alone makes it a great experience. Who ever came up with the Consept is probably someone I would like to go to a Halloween party , or just hang out in a graveyard with.

This game is well worth the 10 dollars, If you are not hooked by the time you get to the Salem Mission you'll be hooked once you become notorious and have to defend your own home.

Looking forward to seeing more from Ectoplasm Studio.

~Undead Aaron
youtube.com/winterhaltermedia