Reka: running off with Baba Yaga’s witch hut

At the moment, I’m chilling in my bird skeleton armchair in front of the oven. It’s sort of my pilot’s seat. I speak the command phrase: «Hut, hut, go where I say!» A deep, cackling cluck sounds around me as my humble hut rises into the air. I can now ride my house. As it trudges through the woods on two sturdy chicken legs, I enjoy the view from high above the trees.

Sound strange? It’s all part of the game. Reka takes me on a journey into the forests of Eastern Europe. The legend of Baba Yaga the Forest Witch is widespread there. Baba Yaga is said to live in a house on chicken legs and eat people. Luckily, they aren’t on the menu in Reka. Reka was released in Early Access on 12 September 2024, and I spent around six hours trying the game.

An apprentice witch living in forest harmony

I slip into the shoes of Reka, a young girl who meets an old lady in the forest – Baba Yaga herself. She threatens to throw me in her soup if I don’t help her perform a dark ritual to revive her long-dead chicken hut. And since I obviously play such an important role in the ritual, the house now listens to me instead of Baba Yaga. I banish the old hag to a rocking chair by the fireplace and set about renovating the house according to my own ideas.

There’s no comprehensive background story to be found in the first few hours of gameplay. I don’t know who Reka is or why she’s wandering around in the forest. Baba Yaga obviously waited a long time for me to appear, even leaving me her raven as a little helper. She also gifts me a pile of wood to start. This allows me to build the first walls, doors and windows on my mobile base.

But to get more wood, I first have to get permission from the forest ranger: a spirit deer that protects the forest and its inhabitants from humans. To do this, I trudge to the edge of the map with my house and enter a new region of the woods. I catch the guardian’s attention by helping animals and other forest creatures. Deer get raspberries, forest spirits a freshly baked pancake. When I happen to see a cage with a trapped rabbit in the middle of nowhere, I free the animal with the help of my raven. Lo and behold, the forest guardian appears and tells me that I’ve proved my worth. The rabbit on my arm is happy too.

Nevertheless, I still have to decide whether to punish overzealous woodsmen for logging in the name of the guardian or let them go. I’m merciful, they have to get by somehow. And I get my permission to collect wood either way. Yes, it’s weird that the forest guardian is ready for rageful combat with a few tree-felling lumberjacks then immediately allows me to do the same. Oh well, I’ll overlook that.

My new profession – chicken hut interior designer

Either way, I can now chop down trees with impunity and use the wood to build my hut. It gets new floors and a chic roof. There are hardly any limits to my imagination when building, and the more detailed the house becomes, the more witchy it looks. I’ve already collected some furniture and decorative trinkets on my forays through the woods. This also includes rescued animals: I found a cat and a small bird that have now made their home in my hut.

Building a house and, above all, furnishing it is an essential part of the game. I can fill every surface with books, vases, skulls, candles, plates and even food. Want to stack endless books on top of each other and place a skull and a candle on top? Go right ahead!

As a budding witch, I don’t stir cauldrons filled with potions, but I do use my oven for cooking and baking. I combine three ingredients at a time, which, if they work together, result in a new recipe in my journal. The stove requires firewood to produce the food.

I don’t need the food myself: Reka isn’t a survival game, there’s no hunger mechanic. But I can arrange the dishes beautifully on a table, or sell the food and treat myself to more furniture from the travelling merchant. Sometimes chow is also needed for quests. Incidentally, the tasks that villagers give me are of the simpler variety. Gather the honeycombs from three beehives, help collect pumpkins or find a runaway goat. The latter is really very cute – the little thing had just walked around the house, and I just followed the ringing of the little bell on its collar. I was then able to take the tiny goat in my arms and carry it back. Cuteness overload.

Gloomy and beautiful – but in need of technical improvements

The forests and swamps I walk through seem wild and scary – but also beautiful. The setting sun casts split shadows on the ground, and its light glistens across the water, haze wafting along the ground. Sometimes, I find old burial sites or mystical circles in the forest – there’s always something to discover. The background music also fits the atmosphere very well. Yes, Reka is definitely something special.

I also like store interaction with the travelling merchant. I take what I want from his sales table, then pay for it. To sell my wares, I access the scales on the table and place my items there. The seller then gives me a price. This is way more immersive than a simple trading menu, which even AAA titles resort to time and again.

The fact that the textures on furniture look rather coarse up close and some trees look flat as a pancake from a distance – no problem. It’s an indie game, and Early Access has only just started. This developmental state is also evident in the menus and the fiddly build mode. The journal is nicely decorated at the edges, but the look of menu items still needs improvements. Some fonts are far too small, and the icons aren’t easy to recognise.

Build mode works quite well for the most part, but there’s ways to do things better here too. Wall segments often aren’t aligned directly with existing segments, I have to turn them by hand. This doesn’t work with the mouse wheel, but by dragging with the mouse button held down, which often isn’t very precise. The symbols in the build menu and building categories are also very rudimentary. Everything seems a little unpolished and sometimes awkward.

My verdict on Reka

Indie development studios are always coming up with interesting ideas, and this is no exception. I like the mix of house building and furnishing as well as exploration and role-playing. Reka has left me quite relaxed: there are no enemies, and I’m not a cruel witch either. I’m trying to do good. Despite the sometimes rather simple graphics, the game shows that it’s made with love.

Looking forward, I’d like to see an overarching story implemented to better involve me, especially at the beginning. I want my career as a witch to have a deeper meaning. The game would also benefit from some fine-tuning with the menus and icons.

Reka was released in Early Access on Steam on 12 September 2024. The game was provided to me by Fireshine Games for testing purposes.