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The Witch’s Bakery is a game that, at a glance, might look like it’s a life sim with a bakery management element. It’s not! Rather, it’s more of an adventure game with socialization and very light puzzle elements that slowly invites a player into the world of a witch in Paris. This means it’s a soothing sort of story, even when dealing with tougher topics. However, some might find it a little slow and plodding, especially with a certain Switch bug getting in the way.
Lunne is a heart witch whose abilities allow her to use magic to enter heart palaces of customers to heal them emotionally, allowing them to deal with feelings they aren’t processing for some reason. She does so through her baked goods. As she meets people in Paris, she’ll help them come to terms with things and also develop relationships with people after she’s gotten to know them. Meanwhile, we’ll also watch and assist as she builds up her bakery.
Every day in The Witch’s Bakery follows the same sort of pattern. Lunne wakes up and heads to the shop. While her partner Orio automatically makes different breads and pastries, we move her around to create additional dough for the food, to clean the countertop so Orio can keep working, and fulfill orders by grabbing items to hand to people. Occasionally, during these parts, someone with a strong emotion will come up and we’ll need to guide an icon of Lunne’s head through a maze to an emotion, then to an exit, while avoiding obstacles. These segments are incredibly short, super easy, and basically let a person put their brain on autopilot for about five to ten minutes.
After a shift in the bakery, a story-advancing mission will come up. A named customer with actual portrait will come in with a situation that could take multiple days to fulfill as we actually head into their personal Heart Palace. This means walking Lunne and an emotion typically through 2D spaces, occasionally needing to press a button if a blockade gets in the way or complete puzzles that involve moving blocks with cut-out pathways through them to create paths the emotion can follow to reach items. Said puzzles again aren’t too challenging, though they will involve more parts as you get closer to the Heart’s Cradle in each Heart Palace.
Once the shift and heart-repairing mission for each day is over, we get to follow Lunne through her free-time in The Witch’s Bakery. This can involve socializing with people over movies and meals, getting points to advance in skill trees that affect the bakery segment via activities through activities and purchases, and a chance to do some shopping for purely decorative cosmetics for the bakery. Then, when the night comes, we can apply points to the skill tree to make customers more patient while waiting for bakery orders or lessen the effects of obstacles in the easy mazes during those shorter bakery mazes.
The thing about The Witch’s Bakery is that it forces a certain sort of pace on you through a combination of design decisions and bugs. Lunne’s walking speed both in the bakery and in Paris is quite slow. In the bakery, I get and it honestly doesn’t feel as bad. It’s a small space and we’re really just just walking from the main counter to the back to prepare extra dough via simple quick-time events. But when you’re walking around Paris, I found it frustratingly slow. A fast-travel option would have been appreciated.
Worse is the bug that forces conversations to a halt. Whenever ellipses come up in the script, which is surprisingly often, The Witch’s Bakery pauses for at least 25 seconds on the Switch. (Sometimes, it felt even longer!) The first time it happened, I even pressed the Home button on the console, as I thought the game froze. Since this is closer to a visual novel than any sort of actual life or bakery management sim, it really breaks immersion.
Another thing about The Witch’s Bakery is that it can feel more like playing through a kinetic story. This isn’t a bad thing by any means! Sunny Lab tells the tale in an effective way with lovely visuals. Someone just shouldn’t go in expecting a situation where they make meaningful decisions during the bakery management portion that affect the business and its income. Likewise, most of the relationship choices are tied to who you spend time with and if Lunne becomes close with certain individuals after meeting them or assisting with their emotional well-being. I think it’s just important someone approaching the title understand that the meat of it is watching Lunne work her magic in Paris while occasionally solving some maze-related puzzles and handing people baguettes and croissants.
With The Witch’s Bakery, Sunny Lab takes its timetelling a heartfelt story about a caring witch aiding her community. The focus really is on helping certain customers come to grips with certain situations. The bakery management and puzzle-solving portions really feel like brief bits designed to add additional flavor along the way. However, it’s also important to know going in that this is a text-heavy adventure and both intentional and unintentional choices force you to match its slower pace.
The Witch’s Bakery is available on the Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC.
