First Impressions of the REKA Demo

This debut from Emberstorm Entertainment has more to offer than I expected.

REKA is one of the many games that is releasing in September, and has been on my personal wish list since January 2nd, when I first saw it making rounds on TikTok as a highly anticipated cozy game. Though I have a penchant for this genre, I have found that I have been growing fatigued in the last 18 months from the typical farming or collecting game that every company is putting out. I found REKA as these feelings were at their peak, and despite this I became extremely excited for it, mainly for its lore and premise.

In this debut game by Emberstorm Entertainment, Reka is a young witch who lives in the woods, decorating her house, gathering herbs, and helping villagers. I hate to say it, but how many times have we read this, folks? The number of times that I have lived in the woods, decorated a house, and gathered herbs to help villagers is too many to count. But REKA brings a new premise to the genre I have become cynical about. The game is based on Slavic folklore, making the title character the apprentice to the legendary Baba Jaga, a witch who roams the wilds in a house with giant chicken legs.

The promise of a chicken house was enough to sell me on wishlisting it. Despite my excitement, I only found out about the release of the demo a few days before writing this. Keeping my finger on a pulse has never been my strong suit, but I am here now, a mere four days before its official release to give my thoughts on what Emberstorm has given us a taste of.

To start, you’re dropped in the character creator to shape your version of Reka. Compared to a lot of farming sims or cozy games, it is rather limited, both for the good and the bad. You cannot make an obvious change to your gender, be it by the click of the button or choosing pronouns. For me, personally, that is not much of an issue, as we are playing a set main character. In addition to that, you can only choose from a select number of outfits and accessories, which hints at being able to collect clothing and the like further down the line. Things such as hair and eyebrow color, however, have several sliding scales, being able to give your character raven locks or snowy white hair or even bright pink braids.

The character creator in the REKA demo.

That being said, things are left to be desired by the character maker. There are only six skin tones, and the darkest two feel a little flat and lack undertone. Not only that but out of the thirteen hair styles, only three would could be considered POC hairstyles, maybe five if you include the shaved head and the curly haired head scarf. Hopefully in future updates, this can be remedied, but I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt as a debut demo for an Eastern Europe dev team.

A version of Reka with curls and the darkest skin tone available in the game.

Visually, the game’s graphics aren’t overly complex, but the woods are gorgeous, as I said. Lots of diverse trees and other flora, and if you pay attention you’ll see animals wandering about. The NPCs and your character fit quite nicely into the setting, though the average townsfolk really pales in comparison to the effort put into Baba Jaga. Though the sunsets and rises seem to suffer from an issue that I have with the Witcher 3, which is that the change in lighting makes things hard to see in the red haze.

View when you first enter the game.

Example of red shading.

But, otherwise, it’s a fun world to look at. The devs seemed to enjoy making the lanterns and other little light sources as much as they did the sunsets, as the nights are made both cozy and spooky at the same time. It may not be what is intended, but in the future when I play I may do most of my foraging at night just to appreciate the lantern glow.

The glow from a house at night.

The soundtrack of the game is for the most part peaceful, coming in and out depending on what activities you’re doing. Being primarily string-based, the violin adds a haunting undertone to the whole game. Building your hut or performing rituals gain more of a feel of importance than it did before. But the ambient noises of the animals and other creatures are where I got the most enjoyment. When wandering the woods and music drops and you’re mostly left with the crows, chickens, and occasional goat filling in the empty air.

Aforementioned feathered friends.

I don’t know how realistic I would consider these noises, that’s not something I’ll claim to be knowledgeable in. I do, however, know when I am delighted, and these bird noises are the definition of delightful. I wasn’t expecting animals to be a large part of the game, but that feels like a stupid assumption for a game about Baba Jaga. The wildlife so far creates some breathtaking moments that I am excited to see further on. And when playing you can see the care they put into those designs, from the feather patterns of the chickens to the faces of deer.

A side note, the image above is from the REKA presskit. I was not able to find out if you can pet deer in the actual game, but if you can: amazing!

Now there seems to be three main parts of the game: collecting items and herbs, using those things to do rituals and spells, and building your chicken hut. Now, the demo does not do a lot to actually show off the use of the items you can collect, as you only use your items to do one large ritual and then nothing more. But as long as you don’t leave the boundaries of the map, you can build and collect items as long as you please. Assisted by some feathered friends, you can explore and find grain, honey, berries, and other items that will all appear in your journal as you discover them. The journal is really well laid out, I appreciate all the tabs and categories. But even though you can highlight which quest you are following, it doesn’t seem to ping locations or items. You have to wander around and learn new places on your own time or by talking to people. This isn’t a big deal to me, but some gamers might have issues with this system. 

Collecting items for the ritual.

The building mechanics in this game really shine, as it gives a level of control that I’m not really used to. You can build to your heart's content, creating whatever rooms or floors you would like, as long as you have the materials to do so.

You can move the house into the rivers and park it there; building seems to be able to happen anywhere and anytime.

There also seems to be dozens of ways to find items to furnish your house, be it through finding items throughout the map in crates or doing tasks for villagers. I’m led to believe that eventually we can buy decorations or ingredients from a merchant, but the demo doesn’t make that too clear. I found myself spending quite a bit of time trying to shape my house and discovering new items. For those of you who may have been wondering: yes, you can get pets. I discovered in the decorating phase that there may be multiple types of cats, although they seem to only be, well, decorative at this time. But, I feel that’s enough for me, personally.

Creating a room on the foundation.

I’m excited to see what Emberstorm has in store for us on the 12th. I really feel that it’s a labor of love and they definitely had a target audience in mind when implementing all of the features I saw in the demo. REKA does have areas that can be improved upon, specifically in the character creator, but the actual gameplay and features the demo has shown off has me filled with anticipation. The thought of being able to play a cozy game that goes against the trending formula, even slightly, is a breath of fresh air.  I just hope that it does not go sour on me, even once I am done building my chicken hut to my heart's content.

The house!

Thank you for reading and see you soon!