This review is from the IGMC 2018 Secret Santa event. I may or may not have finished the game (I'm not sure, details to follow), so this is based off of the sections of the game I did get to experience.
The setting and lore of the game is an original touch that leaves a good impression. The backstory art pieces, while simple, fits with the overall aesthetics and help reinforce the unique worldview of the title. There's definitely a lot of potential and personality that can be glimpsed from the demo here.
However, the execution falls short and leaves much to be desired, especially considering that the game was submitted more than 7 days before the end of the contest (which is about 25% of the entire duration.) There are numerous bugs and questionable design issues that might've been addressed had the designer made full use of the time available.
Some bugs encountered were:
1. The game will crash in battle if no skills were learned.
2. There are numerous wall tiles that had passability issues, resulting in the character being able to walk through walls.
3. Certain skills are either coded incorrectly or have the wrong description, as they do something different from what they advertise (eg. Resurection < spelling mistake, btw)
Design issues:
1. Battle balancing. In my first playthrough attempt, my first enemy encountered used Life Drain twice, dealing more than half of my total HP each time, and I was dead. If it wasn't for the fact that I was playing the game to give feedback, I would've stopped playing right there. In my second attempt, after picking up all the Attack-family skills, I was able to progress more, but an encounter left me poisoned, and with no antidote, my HP slipped down to 1 while solving puzzles on the map. When I noticed it in the next battle, it was too late and I was sent to the Game Over screen again. By my third play through, I've decided to skip battles altogether.
2. Skill learning system. While I understand the intent that the designer had for creating a "choose-your-own-skills" system, there were a number of user-unfriendly quirks that worked against the intent. For one, the decision to use a map to navigate through the skills instead of a window-based UI made the system unnecessary clunky. Understandably, this might have been necessary because the designer didn't have access to custom coding one way or another.
However, from a design perspective, there's also the issue that the function of skills is not clear to the player. The descriptions of "raising ATK by 20" or "charming an enemy for 5 turns" don't carry any meaning without context of the system, and players don't have that insight into the inner workings and formula of the game. Therefore, while in theory this system allows players to make "choices", players end up having to make "uninformed decisions or guesses" rather than any strategic or tactical reason.
3. Puzzles. Certain puzzles are explained once (mirror), certain puzzles are not explained (the first fire/orb color, block pushing), and certain puzzles are explained over and over again when the player steps on a certain tile (sunbird). Not only is the inconsistency jarring, the fact that certain explanations are omitted or only accessible once means that players can easily get stuck.
4. Not knowing where to go next. After encountering the Witch and being thrown into a dungeon cell, I climb out with a new party member to continue my journey to... I don't know where to go. I've circled around the map twice and could not find a way to progress in the game, and this was where I stopped playing.
All in all, A Witches Heart had a very unique premise and custom visuals that was unfortunately undercut by the implementation and design of its gameplay systems. To be clear, the effort was certainly there, and that alone deserves recognition.
In looking at a lot of the issues and bugs, the core problem might simply be that the designer has too much information and insight in their head, and could not accurately gauge how the experience would unfold for players that did not have these inside information.