‘Ritual of Raven’ Demo Review: Magic Meets Coding

When I first came across Ritual of Raven, not only was I excited to try out another farming sim but the game’s magical elements really caught my interest. The idea of using magic for tending to crops was something I’d never experienced before, with unlocking sprinklers being the closest thing to that feeling. Read our Ritual of Raven demo review.

Ritual of Raven is a story-based farming sim, your character resides in a world with no magic until one day they’re sucked into a portal and enter a world where magic is alive and well. You meet Sage, who takes you under their wing as an apprentice to understand this world.

Right off the bat, it’s important that we talk about the magic mechanic; it’s an absolute blast! The main character describes it best when comparing it to coding. I love figuring out what combination of commands works best to grow my crops, and this automation helps me to explore more often.

Everything is handled seamlessly, and you don’t even need to be near your construct for the commands to work, meaning you can explore the village, interact with its lively NPCs, forage or even solve puzzles. The puzzles, in particular, are my favourite, each offering a great challenge that excites me.

I’ve only encountered one issue with the commands: the “Move” genre of spells can be a bit difficult to swap between, as I found myself clicking numerous times for it to work. Otherwise, I appreciate the variety of spells that the demo offers, and they’re all pretty easy to obtain, often being purchased from one of the shops.

The crops also surprised me, each having different stages of growth, where you can harvest different materials which are used for quests or unlocking new areas. I will admit though, that farming took a backseat in the demo; it didn’t feel too overwhelming when completing missions due to the level of automation.

I also adore the neighbouring town. I was especially excited to see how animated each NPC was, their idle poses make them feel so alive, and the pixel-art character icons are so well made. I’m even impressed that our main character manages to have a sprite that changes depending on their customisation.

The customisation did feel pretty straightforward, which I appreciated; however, I struggled to find a hairstyle and clothing that really suited my character. I also found the default eyes a bit, which made me opt for glasses. It’s also a blessing that you can change your character’s appearance in-game should the need arise.

Despite being able to finish all the content in the demo within a few hours I’m pretty satisfied with what it had to offer, I felt as though there was a good amount of everything to give you enough practice on all of the game’s mechanics while also giving you enough room to explore with many more to come.

I do unfortunately have to admit that the game’s story hasn’t managed to capture me yet, while I adore all the interactions with characters, especially the player’s familiar who’s simply named Raven, I find myself enjoying mostly the gameplay at this point in time. I’m optimistic that the plot will win me over at some point.

Overall, I’m really happy with the experience I had in the Ritual of Raven demo; the gameplay, as I mentioned, is my favourite part and really gets my brain working. The world feels so alive, especially when I spot Raven following my character across the map. The game also performs extremely well. I don’t think I’ve encountered any form of lag throughout my play through and while I did enjoy the demo on PC, I’m really looking forward to trying out the Switch version later down the line.

Ritual of Raven is developed by Spellgarden Games. The game launches on Steam and Nintendo Switch on August 7th, 2025.

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