Quantum Witch Review

It’s admirable when a developer rises from the ashes of difficult experiences and pours their heart and their story into a game, offering their tale to the world as something fun for others to enjoy. Quantum Witch, created by developer Nikki Jay, is one such game. 

Quantum Witch, according to Nikki, has been through a variety of different iterations over the years. According to an article in The Guardian, she originally wanted to write a novel. Then, according to an interview with Gayming Mag, she wanted to produce Quantum Witch as a visual novel. 

Quantum Witch Review

6.5Good

PlatformPC

Release DateJune 24, 2025

DeveloperNikkiJay

PublisherNikkiJay

What we’ve ended up with is an RPG that lacks critical RPG elements, and it feels like things went a step too far.

Charge your social battery

Quantum Witch feels as though it should have been a visual novel. The majority of gameplay is done through talking to various characters that you meet in different realms, and those conversations are incredibly long. You’re taught combat at one point, but I’m in my eighth hour of playing and have only hit one box. It feels as though a script was written for one genre of game, and then a new direction was taken while the original script was unchanged. 

At first, these conversations are thrilling. They’re packed full of jokes and witty one-liners, some fourth-wall-breaking mockery of the player, and even some digs at the developer herself (“When you have a week to make a game, you have to reuse assets”). Sadly, while the humor starts out as refreshing and unexpected, it quickly wears thin, and you may feel the need to rush things along. 

There’s a lot of small talk with the many residents of Hus, and while this can be nice if you’re feeling up to it, it can also be a bit grating if you’re not. All of this adds up to something that unexpectedly drains your social battery, especially if you’re having a bad day or you’re going into this expecting something a little more… Involved. 

Prepare for confusion

Quantum Witch is not a game that will hold your hand. It’s more the type of game that will throw you off a cliff with the hope that you land on your feet and possess above-average common sense and remarkable recall. Some of the puzzles and tasks are more complicated than others, and if you get stuck, there is no hint button in sight. It’s up to you to remember everything. That’s a problem for me, as I have a brain like a sieve. 

But, on the plus side, Quantum Witch is self-aware enough to acknowledge any issues you might encounter. While searching for my final lost Faer, I became stuck. And I mean really stuck. Searching the internet, joining the Discord, seeking help from anywhere possible type of stuck. When I finally figured it out (thank you, random demo player on the Steam discussion board), the game mocked me for being stuck at that exact moment. 

Every part of Quantum Witch relies on you and only you. If your memory fails you or you skip over dialogue (accidentally or intentionally, I won’t judge), you’ll end up completely lost with no idea what you’re doing or what you’re supposed to be doing. Still, that was just the introduction, because then I was suddenly given “magic”. 

Magically mediocre

Quantum Witch is described by Nikki as a “plotformer”, so you could be forgiven for thinking that there’s a large amount of platformer mechanics involved. There are some, especially after you unlock the ability to flatten the world around you using your magic and jump onto the platforms behind the usual layer, but otherwise, the only jumping you’re going to be doing is walking from one side of Hus to the other. 

Once you get your magic, you’ll be able to choose the effect that occurs on screen whenever you use it. There are nine different choices, each represented by a different pride flag. It’s a nice touch in a game that’s heavily based on LGBQT+ issues and themes, and having that option helps to feel more connected to the game as you play, especially if you’re a part of the LGBQT+ community yourself.

According to the Steam page, a playthrough of Quantum Witch should take you about four hours to complete. However, I’ve been playing for eight hours, and I find myself not only unsure about how much I have progressed, but also unsure exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. This goes back to the lack of hand-holding, and while I’m not saying I want to be guided through, perhaps some kind of chatlog or history would be nice to refresh my memory of where I’m supposed to be going. 

At times, I found myself randomly playing as other characters entirely with little to no explanation and no meaningful outcome. 

Hus has a lot of heart

Look, if you’ve read this far, then first of all, thank you, but second of all, you should know that despite everything I’ve mentioned above, Quantum Witch is not a terrible game. It’s been created based on some very real and traumatic experiences, and I have to give Nikki credit for that. That takes guts, good for you, girl. 

The art is gorgeous, I can’t deny that. There are a lot of pixel-art games out there today, and it can be hard for any of them to stand out. Quantum Witch is vibrant, and the main protagonist, Ren, is animated to perfection. The different locations that you encounter feel unique and alive in their own ways, and the fourth-wall-breaking dialogue about the re-use of assets prevents it from feeling like a problem. 

My biggest sticking point with Quantum Witch is that it feels mismatched. The art style on its own is beautiful, the story on its own is interesting and captivating, but they don’t seem to blend well together. The story deserves to shine, but it gets watered down by the lacklustre mechanics that seem to have been rushed into place at the last minute. 

If Quantum Witch had remained a visual novel, or if you go into it expecting it to pretty much be one, the story would take center stage, unavoidably and deservedly. Visual novels can still carry that pick-your-own-adventure element, and the mutation into a watered-down RPG feels unnecessary. As it stands, it feels like a jumble of genres that fight for focus, disallowing any of the individual elements to shine.