Game: Ritual of Raven
Genre: Puzzle, Adventure, RPG, Indie
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Steam (Windows))
Developer | Publisher: Spellgarden Games | Team17
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 3+
Price: US $19.99 | UK £14.99 | EU € 14,99
Release Date: August 7th, 2025
Review code used, with many thanks to Press Engine.
Developed by the small indie studio, Spellgarden Games, Ritual of Raven is a fetch quest and farming story, with a twist. With its witchy theme, you don’t get your hands dirty in the soil; you enchant Arcana Constructs to do the hard work for you.
Will this be coding magic? Or will the loops and ifs go awry?
Performing A Ritual of Raven
Before you start your Ritual of Raven, you get to customise your character. There is a lot to choose from: skin tone; headwear; hair styles; eye wear; and clothes. Each has over ten different colours. If that’s too much choice, then there is a random generator. To be honest, your character is quite small on the screen (would have loved a zoom function!), but if you’re not happy with your creation, you can change all aspects via the mirror in the house.
Ritual of Raven starts with you arriving in an unknown place via a magical portal. You’ll soon be greeted by Sage, a witch who has lost her familiar, Flufferstoop, via the same portal. The portals are behaving erratically, causing strangers to appear and other things to vanish. Sage will explain that without Flufferstoop, she has limited magical powers. Regardless, she wants to train you in the art of magic, so that together you’ll be able to correct the problems the Portal Keepers caused, and rescue Flufferstoop. Sage gives you a grimoire, the Book of Shadows, which is your go-to guide to everything in the Ritual of Raven. As you make new discoveries, the Book of Shadows will update.
We all know that the first task for an apprentice witch is to summon an animal familiar (well ,it is in Ritual of Raven!). In the world of Leynia, cultivated plants will lose their magic if picked by hand. Hence, you’ll need to learn how to control the Arcana Constructs (named after Tarot cards) to do these tasks for you. Sage guides you through the process of enchanting these magical ‘statues’.
With the right herbs gathered and the moon altered to the correct phase, you’ll be able to summon your familiar. It turns out to be a rather cheeky raven called Raven. No sooner is this done than the portal activates and Sage jumps in, having heard Flufferstoop through the void. Sage and the rest of Leynia are relying on you to fix the portals.
Uncovering the Mystery of Ritual of Raven
Ritual of Raven guides you to find out more about the Portal Keepers by visiting the local village. There, you will meet a handful of wonderfully quirky and diverse locals who are all in need of a little help. For instance, Bowie, the resident musician, needs some plants harvested, and Dan, the diner owner, needs some rosemary for his stew. By using your newfound enchanting skills, you’ll be able to plough, sow, water, harvest, and clean up. Finding or buying new enchantment cards as you progress.
You’ll also discover a Sharding Portal, the Ritual of Raven version of a shipping bin. Initially, I didn’t grow herbs to sell, as the shards received for completing quests are quite generous, and I also found shards and decorations by picking the grass and weeds from around the cottage and village.
With the initial quests done, you’ll get to hear the Welcome Wagon Orientation Sensation. This song about the Portal Keepers is the best piece of music in Ritual of Raven and explains how the portals were opened and in the chaos that followed, how the Portal Keepers fled.
Via a multitude of conversations and a fetch quest bonanza, you’ll chisel away at the truth behind the Portal Keepers and work out how the portals can be fixed. Ritual of Raven is very structured; it is quest after quest, with a lot of text to read. However, there is no time pressure; the quest givers will wait patiently for their items. Sometimes, you might just need to talk to someone, or you might need to grow specific herbs; other times it might be to buy furniture or find items. Luckily, there’s a fast travel option to speed up wandering around Leynia. Each task is recorded in the Book of Shadows and can be shown on screen if needed.
As well as the main quest, there are plenty of side quests to fill your time. Each resident has the desire for three specific gifts (you can’t gift random items), and when they receive the gift, a separate quest launches. I enjoyed the ‘guess the outline’ part of the side quest, sometimes, you’ll know straight away the item; other times you’ll be worried about selling things, just in case!
In the whimsical world of Ritual of Raven, fishing is done via the magical portals, some shards and a fishing claw. It’s an arcade claw machine where you are trying to catch shadows. Sometimes you’ll be able to grab two shadows, at other times the shadow will disappear before you get to it. You’ll be able to keep or sell any of the items you fish out. Some items are required to fulfil the main quests, some are gifts for residents and they can all be donated to the scrap museum. Oh yes, there’s a museum for the portal fishing items. There’s also a library for spell fragments and a crystal museum – plenty to keep the completists happy.
When you want a change of pace from completing quests, you’ll be able to decorate your house and garden with items you find, are given, or you buy from the local shop. There is an assortment of items, all of which will create your own unique home.
Using the Arcana Constructs
Whether it’s growing herbs or mining gems, you’ll need to use the Arcana Constructs to do the task for you. If you’ve got any experience in visual programming, or flowcharts, then you’ll find enchanting easy. However, if you’ve ever given directions or explained how to make something, then you’ll be able to master the enchantment process. It’s all about moving the Arcana Construct to the right place and then selecting the right action to perform. The instructions given in Ritual of Raven are clear, and you’ll be able to test out your enchantment before getting the Arcana Construct to action it.
Occasionally, you’ll come across puzzles where you’ll need to use an Arcana Construct to solve it. Initially, it’s moving over certain tiles, but in other areas of Leynia, you’ll need to enchant the Arcana Constructs to deliver crystals to plinths and the like. The Arcana Constructs will only work within a certain area, but you can summon them to other locations.
There are lots of enchantment cards available, and although you’ll have to get to grips with some of them (like fusing crystals or seeds together), there are lots of ways to achieve the end goal. You might use loops and check ifs, alternatively you can just do a simple instruction and keep executing it. There is no perfect enchantment to accomplish all the tasks, but when you design an enchantment you’re proud of, you can save it and use in the future or on different Arcana Constructs.
Gameplay
The controls for Ritual of Raven are clearly given on screen. The game plays well in docked and handheld mode, although the writing is bordering slightly too small for the handheld screen. There is limited touchscreen functionality, with the ability to tap on some items to view or accept, but no ability to swipe to move around the screen.
I didn’t encounter any juddering or crashes. However, Ritual of Raven relies heavily on narrative; there is a lot of text to read through. There’s no voice acting, just little noises each time a character speaks (which is slightly annoying). Different colours are used in the text to represent different voices, with some of the colours harder to read than others. As per the US age rating warning, some of the text contains mild profanities.
Ritual of Raven autosaves when you sleep, and with 20 save slots available, you’ll be able to have multiple playthroughs. An in-game day takes around 20 real-time minutes, but time pauses during conversations and when in menus, so it can take considerably longer. There’s easily about 20 to 30 hours of gameplay – I’ve spent around 15 hours and I’m probably just over halfway through the story, and have done some decorating and completed a few of the side quests.
Conclusion
Ritual of Raven is a quest fest and a collecting paradise. The story bobs along like the cheeky raven, moving from one place to another, all guided, but with no time pressure.
Creating enchantments to control the adorable pot-like Arcana Constructs is definitely a highlight, and although I have a couple of niggles with the game, overall, it’s cast its spell and I’m totally bewitched by it.
Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up 
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