Eastshade devs reveal a new witchy RPG mixing magic, music and gardening

If you’re after a way to make your magic system seem cutesy yet different at the same time, music is a good one to go for. Sure, it’s been done before, but it feels inherently charming. At least, it does in the trailer for newly-revealed Songs Of Glimmerwick, a new game from Eastshade Studios that promises to blend RPG, adventure, and gardening.

No specific release date is confirmed, aside from “next year”. I have to give them credit for the name Songs Of Glimmerwick, which immediately lets you know that this will be about music and magic, and probably have an amount of tweeness. Specific tweeness levels unconfirmed but they’re looking good from the trailer, where you can also clap eyes on some pretty cool-looking gardening, a tree telling you to stfu, and a man earnestly giving you a wooden flute as you head off to magic university. Eastshade Studios are the team behind a lovely game about being a travelling artist on a small, but impossibly picturesque island. Those artventures were in 3D, while Songs Of Glimmerwick is 2D, and looks pretty different. Something about it still has a very Eastshade vibe, though. Maybe it’s the idiosyncratic NPCs, or the way the buildings compliment the natural world around them.

Whatever the case, it looks like you’ll get to explore some different forests and a quaint little town as you go to a school “of magic and melody”. Eastshade Studios say that there will be RPG-style quests to go on, with character development for different skills, including “special abilities, like speaking to frogs”. You’ll also have classes and extra curricular activities at your disposal. With your aforementioned wooden flute you can use music to change things in the world, like shifting the ground to open up a pathway.

It’s hard to tell from the trailer how deep those systems go, but what does look pretty developed is the gardening. Here you can use your music spells to till the earth or cut down trees with enchated tools, summon rainclouds for water, and plant mundane and magical plants in the university’s botanical garden. That’s the kind of thing I could lose hours to, more than fetch quests. Feels a bit Mutazione as well, doesn’t it? We’ll let you know when there’s more to sing about Songs Of Glimmerwick, but for now you can check out its Steam page for all the latest info.