[Note: Please be aware that this game deals with themes and scenes of extreme intolerance that some players may find upsetting.]
In Snow McNally's Twine adventure Little Witch Story, witches, and magic of course, are real. If that's a surprise to you, well, the general population and the government aren't handling it much better, with strict regulation and tests in effect to keep tabs on witches. Not that you've thought too much about it, even though you've seen them around school in their special identifying uniforms. But when a chance encounter makes you realise you're a witch, too, suddenly you've got a lot on your plate. Your best friends June and Eli are looking at you differently, the teachers you used to love seem afraid of you, the other students are already whispering, and even your parents... well, lets just say they aren't taking it well. At least you've got the other witches at school to support you and help you learn more about yourself, but you may discover you've been thrown into the deep end when it becomes apparent that something strange is happening to the local magical folk, and you're tied up in it. To play, just click the bolded pink text at the bottom of the screen to make choices and advance the story. While a lot of your options are mostly cosmetic, some do change the way certain events happen, and maybe even influence a little lovey-dovey action,
It's going to be fairly obvious from the get-go that in spite of also dealing with magical shenanigans, Little Witch Story is also talking about the inherent intolerance and bigotry many people already face today, albeit taken to the extreme here, sort of like the X-Men's underlying themes with a little bit of Marvel's own Civil War story on top of it. People are afraid of witches, sure, because witches can do things like flip over cars with a thought, appear out of thin air, and cause lightning to rain from the sky... but does that mean they should be tagged, restrained, and identified like animals? These are issues and ideas that have been explored before, and Little Witch Story does so mostly well, but the narrative is focused on extremes... the lion's share of people are so adverse to witches as to seem cartoonishly evil, small-minded, and oppressive, while the witches are all kind, cool, cute, and powerful. It's like if every other character in Harry Potter apart from Harry, Ron, and Hermione were replaced by the Dursleys, and this extreme dissonance means the overarching themes and parallels of bigotry, racism/homophobia, and so forth aren't integrated as smoothly or naturally as they could be, and the ending, no matter which you get, still feels a little abrupt and hastily wrapped up. That said, that Little Witch Story at least tries to deal with and incorporate diversity like gender fluidity, sexuality, and even depression is pretty darned noteworthy, with a cast that covers a lot of the LGBTQ spectrum that often gets ignored. The story of the strange magical goings-on actually does a fairly good job of obfuscating whodunnit, though it's often hard to tell how much your choices are actually influencing things, and on the whole the narrative is well written and engaging, if a bit rushed in places. Little Witch Story is a solid afternoon's read with enough warm fuzzies and explosive scenes to make up for the darker scenes, and if you're looking for Anime-style over-the-top high school witch drama, with eight different endings, it's well worth checking out.
Played it through once, may play again to see some other aspects of the story. Spoilers from here because plot stuff:
Played through the game trying to maintain something of an ongoing juggling act, trying to maintain his friends and family while accepting his newfound heritage. This worked, to a point. It may be vague at times when dialogue has a major impact, but other times you pick an option and have to come face to face with the stone cold fact that the option you picked has led you astray of where you wanted to go.
That said, while the writing is for the most part smooth, due to the nature of the beast it can be a bit janky at times. The most notable example from my game came in the first time Mira teleported my protagonist, and it was described as a familiar shrinking feeling. Sadly, through whatever twist of plot I had taken, this was the first time I had run in to the fact Mira could teleport at all, let alone joined her for the ride. It also came at a point where plot convergence made a lot of really eventful magical stuff happen all at once, where before it had barely been touched on.
Overall it was enjoyable, and I probably took a lesser traveled path to get to the particular writing hiccups I managed to hit. Worth reading at least once, and probably worth reading a second time to try to get to the bottom of things a bit farther.
I found 6/8 endings
as far as I can tell, the ending "achievement" mostly depends on who you date, rather than other story details
1. June
When getting tested for being a witch, ask for June to come with you, agree to date her later, avoid speaking about Eli.
2. June&Eli
Same as before, but instead, go with the options that suggest Eli join you on a date
3. Eli
Ask Eli to come with you to get tested, agree to go on a date with him
4. Mira
Ask Mira to come with you to get tested, flirt with her, go on a date with her and choose positive reactions for what happens at the date
5. Davina&Robbie
Go to get tested alone, agree to go on a date with Davina & Robbie
6. None
Ask Mira to keep your being a witch a secret, and keep refusing to admit it to June & Eli
**Sophia
Push Sophia towards taking the witchstone, or having Felicia's blood removed. With the second option, you can offer and push her towards accepting your blood.
???
Refuse to wear the uniform, ask the nurse what's wrong, take the card, and talk to Mira about it afterwords. This MIGHT have something to do with the kind of powers you have.
I think the other endings might have to do something with
calling the number on the card, dating Sophia, dating Kurt, or getting in trouble with the law, but I haven't been able to figure them out yet. Help?
Don't know if you still need the help (finite set of possibilities and all) but try:
hiding the fact. Deny it as hard as you can. Tell. Nobody.
though this ending is
listed as ending 0/8. It... isn't the longest path to take from beginning to end
lesser traveled path to get to the particular writing hiccups.
Update