Start here: your first days
The things worth doing on day one, and the deadlines that sneak up on you.
- 6 items to collect
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You arrive on the island of Glimmerwick as a new student of the Etchery, a school where every spell is a short tune played on your flute. The school year runs from Spring to Winter, with 14 days in each season. Between classes you look after the school garden, bake, fish, brew potions and help the islanders with their problems, all leading up to the Harp of Six at the end of Winter.
Your first days
- On day one, go to Practical Practice in Wisk and tell Nalin you study at the Etchery. You get the Skill Trinket, which holds your skill tree.
- Take your Enrollment Supply List to Newt’s Eye, also in Wisk. It gets you a Cauldron and a Potion Starter Set for free. You will carry that cauldron to potion class.
- On Spring 2, a note from Dean Clary offers you the job of school gardener (the story “Campus Career”). Clary teaches you Song of Tilling and hands you your first seeds.
- Nobody in town sells a watering can: pick up the Watering Can lying near the garden shed.
- Plant crops that regrow as soon as you can afford them (see the table below). Kavita sells each of these seeds in one season only.
- Buy a Fishing Rod from Mel at Mel and Lusina’s Shell, on the beach south of Wisk, for 200 Gold Petals.
Deadlines you can’t miss
- Ask Pieter, the baker, about flour during the story “Ferry Girl”: Pieter gives you 3 Flour once. Do it before the mill is cursed.
- Bring at least 330 Gold Petals to the Seaflower Festival on Spring 14. A mermaids’ stall that sells three schematics only appears that day.
- Visit the Bathhouse every day it’s open: each visit is worth 1 experience point. It closes for a while until you sort out the story “The Briny Bathhouse”.
The best crops to start with
- These crops keep producing after the first harvest, so a single planting pays off for the rest of the season. Drop the harvest into the Magic Well in the garden: it pays you overnight.
| Crop | Seed price | Days to grow | Then harvest | Sells for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cocoa Bean | 105 | 6 | every 2 days | 100 |
| Cucumber | 30 | 3 | every day | 30 |
| Blueberry | 50 | 6 | every 2 days | 55 |
| Sleepless Peas | 150 | 3 | every day | 27 |
- More on every crop, season by season, in Crops & seeds.
Garden spells you’ll play every day
- Each spell is a melody. You learn new songs from teachers, villagers and stories, and practising them until they’re perfected makes them cheaper to cast (the cost in brackets).
| Spell | Keyboard | Controller | Mana |
|---|---|---|---|
| Song of Tilling | A S J | ↓ ← A | 35 per plot (28) |
| Rain Dance | L ; L F J | Y B Y → A | 40 (32) |
| Whirlwind Aria | K ; K | X B X | 40 (32) |
| Chant of the Woodcutters | F J K | → A X | 45 per tree (36) |
| Melody of Stones | A F D | ↓ → ↑ | 45 per rock (36) |
How the year works
- There are no gifts and no friendship meter. You get to know people by helping with their stories and asking them about topics you overhear around the island. By the end of the year you need six friends to play the Harp of Six with you.
- You level up every 11 experience points and get one skill point per level. Unlocking all 31 skills takes 341 experience and earns the Arch Witch achievement.
- Cooking means baking: mix Flour and water into Dough, add a flavour and bake it. Food restores mana and sells for more than its raw ingredients.
- Before you brew a potion you practise its recipe in a 60-second cauldron minigame. Your best score sets the quality of every potion you brew from that recipe.