Songs of Glimmerwick is out after eight years, and the developers want you to play the demo first
Eastshade Studios' witch-academy RPG, where spells are cast by playing music, launched on PC on September 30. The studio is keeping the demo up specifically so people can see what the game isn't.
Songs of Glimmerwick is out. Eastshade Studios released its witch-academy RPG on PC on September 30, eight years after starting work on it, and marked the occasion with an unusually frank launch post.
A flute instead of a spellbook
The pitch is a story-driven university game in a musical woodland fantasy world, where casting a spell means playing a song. Alongside the magic there is the familiar cosy-RPG furniture: classes to attend, a university garden to grow, classmates and townsfolk to befriend, and an island of oddities to poke at.
It is a follow-up of sorts to Eastshade, the studio's 2019 game about a travelling painter, which built a reputation on being a game with no combat in it at all.
"What it is, and what it isn't"
The launch announcement is the interesting part. Rather than pushing the sale, Eastshade points players at a three-minute video it describes as a plain and honest explanation of what playing the game is like, and says it is deliberately keeping the demo available because it "shows off what the game is (and what it isn't) perfectly and we want people to know just what they're getting".
That is a rare thing to lead a launch post with, and it reads as a small studio trying to head off the mismatch between what a cosy-fantasy trailer promises and what an eight-year passion project actually plays like.
Price and platforms
Songs of Glimmerwick is $24.99 on Steam, discounted 10% to $22.49 for its first two weeks. Steam lists it as Windows only at launch, with no console versions announced.
Why it matters
The cosy-RPG shelf is crowded and most of it is sold on vibes. A developer who spent eight years on a game and then tells you to try the demo before buying is doing the opposite of that.
Why it matters
Eastshade Studios has a small but real following for games without combat, and Glimmerwick is its first release in seven years - launched with a pitch built around managing expectations rather than raising them.