The Rush song “The Spirit of Radio” is an ode to the radio, the music it plays for us, and the beneficial effects said music has on us. My subject today particularly reminds me of the following two lines of its lyrics: “Off on your way, hit the open road / There is magic at your fingers.” What we’ve got here is Songs of Glimmerwick, developed and published by Eastshade Studios. In the world of Songs of Glimmerwick, every living human is capable of casting magical spells, so long as they have a musical instrument through which they can channel magic.

The world has just recently emerged from a forty-year dictatorship by the so-called “Cult of Silence,” who believed that music and the magic it contains should be available exclusively to the world’s most powerful witches. The Cult of Silence forbade anyone outside that cabal of witches from playing music, owning any musical instruments, or even whistling. The period of their rule is referred to as “the Silence,” and remaining members of the cult are called “Silencers.” By the time Songs of Glimmerwick takes place, the cult is no longer in power, and the benevolent forces of music and magic are once again legal to practice.

There are still plenty of witches who are skilled in musical spellcraft who can teach new generations of witches. These teachers are often found at dedicated schools, such as the one you suddenly find yourself attending: The Etchery. You play as a customizable character who originally had no idea magic even existed, much less that you’re capable of it. One fateful day, you decided you had finally had your fill of living in a boring village that still had no music. You boarded the nearest ferry, paid your fare, and pretty much told the ferryman, “Take me anywhere but here.”

Doing his best to follow your extremely specific and hugely helpful instructions, the ferryman drops you off on the Island of Glimmerwick, where you find that you’re somehow already enrolled at The Etchery. You coincidentally happen to arrive the day before a new school year begins. This all (understandably) sounds insane to you at first, but you decide to just go along with it. Worst case scenario, you’ll stay for a few days on this island of weirdos who believe magic can be channeled through musical instruments, and then catch a ferry to somewhere that’s hopefully more sane in comparison.

Best case scenario, you’ll learn that magic is indeed real and that even you are capable of putting it to use. When you arrive in the nearby town of Wick, you’re given a list of school supplies you will need to acquire before classes begin. Conveniently, that list also serves as a voucher that allows you to get everything you need from the different shops free of charge. Arguably the most important thing on your list of required supplies is a flute, which you’ll need to have custom-made for you by a master craftsman who lives in a nearby forest.

When you go visit him and tell him you’re in need of a flute, he asks you a series of strange questions about your personal preferences that you’re expected to answer as best you can. I have no idea whether or not your answers to this interrogation change anything at all about Songs of Glimmerwick’s story or gameplay. After you’ve given him the information he requested, he sends you off to town to get the rest of your supplies while he crafts your new flute. That (somewhat indirectly) brings me to one of the biggest things I really like about Songs of Glimmerwick.

In the vast majority of circumstances, you are under no time pressure whatsoever. You’re free to explore as much as you like, with no risk of passing out if you stay awake too late, for example. If there’s a mandatory event on your in-game calendar, like a class you have to attend or a get-together with your classmates in the dormitory’s common room, time will not pass until you’ve completed that event. That means you never have to worry about being late to anything, which I think is fantastic. I envy my character not having to stress about finding where classrooms are ahead of time.

That being said, there’s one common circumstance where you are under a lot of time pressure, that being the practice minigame you’re required to do when learning to brew new potions. You’re expected to throw the proper amounts of the required ingredients into one of several cauldrons without adding too much of anything. If you do add too much of something, you have to wait for that cauldron to be emptied and refilled before you can use it again. You have to earn points by correctly brewing a given potion as many times as you can within a time limit.

That’s the biggest thing I dislike about Songs of Glimmerwick’s core gameplay loop. For one thing, having to manually aim ingredients you throw into the array of cauldrons could present accessibility concerns for players (such as myself) who have difficulty making precise movements. Combining that with time pressure and the requirement to earn a certain score within the time limit only serves to make those accessibility concerns more prominent. In fairness, you are allowed to replay each of these minigames as many times as you like with no penalty, but accessibility issues usually only make each of those unlimited retries increasingly frustrating.

I mentioned that you’re not at risk of passing out if you stay up too late. On that note, I should explain that you’re not limited in what you can do during any given in-game day by a finite energy meter, any sort of time pressure, or anything like that. Rather, your only limitation is your mana pool, which you rely on to cast spells. Since the Etchery’s dean assigns you the job of tending to a nearby garden owned by the school, your musical spellwork teacher starts you off with a few handy spells to enchant your gardening tools.

As fun as it is to watch gardening tools go about their work just because I played a specific song on my flute, I really wish Songs of Glimmerwick would allow me to use those tools manually once I run out of mana. Everyone on the Island of Glimmerwick is very firmly in favor of letting magic do everything that would demand any sort of physical labor from witches, so I guess that’s taboo. Being able to use my gardening tools without mana would also basically break a core aspect of Songs of Glimmerwick’s gameplay loop, so I ultimately acquiesced to its demands.

Now seems like a good point for me to pause and address an elephant in the room that has a lightning bolt-shaped scar on its forehead, if you know what I mean. From what I’ve said about Songs of Glimmerwick and the screenshots I’ve shown throughout this article, you’ve likely noticed some similarities between Songs of Glimmerwick and a certain wildly popular intellectual property whose name (nor that of its author) I shall not mention. You might be wary about that, and that’s entirely fair and understandable; I had that same thought myself when I first started playing Songs of Glimmerwick.

However, I urge you to look beyond any concerns you may have and give Songs of Glimmerwick a fair chance without letting that wariness cloud your judgment. Yes, there are several commonalities between Songs of Glimmerwick and the unnamed intellectual property in question, but I think a lot of that can’t really be helped. Songs of Glimmerwick does quite a lot to stand out and avoid being condemned by that comparison, and I commend it for that. I wholeheartedly recommend Songs of Glimmerwick on its own merits, but if you’re still skeptical, there’s a playable demo on Steam you can try before spending any money.

A PC review copy of Songs of Glimmerwick was provided by Eastshade Studios for this review.

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Songs of Glimmerwick

$24.99

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• No time pressure whatsoever in most circumstances.
• Really enjoyable and relaxed core gameplay loop.
• Fascinating story if you’re into this kind of high-fantasy stuff.

Cons

• The few circumstances that do have time pressure also present significant accessibility concerns.