Wicked Willow

This is my first review, so go easy on me. Wicked Willow is a beautiful choose-your-own-adventure visual novel starring the titular Willow learning she is a witch with magical powers. Less game and more observation of events as they unfold, I found Wicked Willow to be a delightful interactive story, but not without its flaws. Let's break it down! Story: Being an interactive novel, the plot is the main feature of the game. And without giving too much away, there are intricate threads told in a "what happened in other timelines" sort-of way. Think "Community" Season 3 Episode 4 (Remedial Chaos Theory) or the movie "Sliding Doors". Most of the story lines end with Willow (read: you) being told to try again and starting from the beginning of the story. The plots are well thought out and not too many events are out of left field if you accept the universe in which the story is set. The ORW concept feels like an Omniscient Council of Vagueness (look it up), but it helps move some of the plot elements along, so I was good with it. Setting: The setting surprised me. I thought it was modern, with the look of the streets and buildings and schools... the focus on soy-lates... But actually, the game is set in the early 1990's. May 1993 is on a newspaper. Willow brings up Janet Reno, who was sworn in as the US Attorney General in March 1993 being in a newspaper. No cell phones. No flat-screen TVs. Willow is a few months away from turning 21, so she is in college, junior college, uni? I thought she was in high school until she started talking about weed and drinking. There was one scene where she was intimate with someone and it almost sounded like the partner was worried about the noise reaching people down stairs. I thought "people down stairs" would be relatives until I realized the issue with Willow's parents. Audio: Now on to the TRUE stars of this story, the voices. The voice acting is amazing! Direct, sultry, meek, soft, purrfect. Everyone sounds reasonably like their character should and you can't tell if the lines were recorded separately or with the talent together in the same booth. Strangely, the Schoolteacher's voice sounds a lot like John O'Hurley. Actually, the only real gripe I have with the game is the audio levels of each voice talent. Some voices are louder than others, like the mastering wasn't smoothed to make it sound like the characters were in the same setting together. If we take Willow's voice as what the environment should sound like, Shadow's voice sounds like he is in an audio recording booth closer to the mic while Avery sounds like he is standing a few more steps away from the mic than everyone else. BUT! Don't let that bother you. Actually, I hope you read this after giving the game a chance, because it certainly deserves one! Art: The art is gorgeous, sexy, and quite entertaining. Check the screenshots and the previews and you'll see what I mean. Hell, the screenshots and previews are probably what enticed you to check out this store page. It certainly enticed me... Gameplay: I completed most of the plot threads in about 4 hours. Understand there is MINIMAL player input here, but that doesn't make it a bad "game". It's more like a voiced web comic. If we are talking about game play, then you should really be pleased with the "Auto" and "Skip" features. Auto makes the story continue on its own. To make good use of this, go into Preferences and move the "Auto-Forward Time" slider all the way to the LEFT. It makes the game progress as though it were an audiobook. It's perfect for putting the story on and letting it play while you nibble on snacks. As for the "Skip" feature, you will be required to play through the game more than once to get the different plot lines. You can skip any portion you have already done before, which is VERY good if you want to fish for different choices. You cannot skip stuff you have not yet completed, but when you see how fast the function zips through dialogue you have already completed, you will be thankful you don't have to sit through the axeman scene over and over again. If there's any gripe to be had here, it's that the scenes don't move like they do in the preview. Everything is static except for the scrolling dialogue. In the end, there's a handful of life choices that all lead to different endings, so grab some popcorn and enjoy them all! LGBTQ: You can't acknowledge this game without acknowledging the LGBTQ aspect of it. The game was featured in the Summer of Pride Steam event! Let me say love is love, lust is lust, partners are partners, and anyone can be with anyone. Now that that's out of the way, for a game that touts its LGBTQ, there was not very much of it. I was interested in seeing more long-term intimacy change or soften Willow's personality over the long term. Unfortunately, all the relationships are short lived and barely indulged. Some of Willow's various partners are quickly tossed aside for different timelines of the game, and there are no scenes of intimacy. If you are looking for sexual situations, this story is not for you. This is in stark contrast to the visuals. The game's ladies (except for Willow) are fantastically busty, certainly drawn to raise your body temp. The one or two men in the game are drawn to differing degrees of handsome, too. Certainly, this was done either to the artist's taste, or to the target audience on the sales charts. It drew me in, got me to spend, and then let me down with the lack of developed intimacy. HOWEVER! Let me close by saying this minimally interactive story is a WONDERFUL trip into the life of a young witch learning how to exist in a world she barely understands. Certainly a coming-of-age allegory that is fun to insert your thoughts and reflections on your own youth. If you strip away the magic, it's still a story of interpersonal relationships gone right or wrong, based on your decisions. I think the bigger thought is how few decisions actually change the course of her existence. We, as the player, make hundreds of choices in a given day, but how many of them actually affect the outcome of our lives? This game shows you that the 10 or so decisions you make could possibly affect the existence of the world itself.