Garden Witch Life: Guide to Getting Started

Garden Witch Life is a cozy witchy game from FreetimeStudio. I know I know you love such games, and so do I. I just adore the visuals, the gameplay, and the relaxing ambiance. Besides exploring a lush green island, I can do a lot of other things, such as gardening, cooking, brewing potions, and befriending interesting characters. I have yet to discover the island’s secrets, hidden passageways, and pets, and am sure it will get more interesting the more I explore. If you’re just beginning your adventure, make sure to check out this guide:

Customizing Your Character

Garden Witch Life’s character creation screen has a simple UI, but you can do many things, such as choosing skin color, blush color, eye color, and eyebrows. I liked how it allowed me to adjust the hue and saturation for each, helping me make my character stand out and look pretty.

Costumes and accessory-wise, the game has a decent collection – I could choose shirts, pants, socks, shoes, accessories like hats, and earrings. Oh and did I tell you there are quite a few hairstyles to choose from, and guess what you can color them, and change their hue, saturation, and value! Now that’s some fun character customization in this game!

The User Interface

Garden Witch Life’s UI isn’t cluttered. The best part is that one can easily access every menu by pressing the corresponding key. Here’s the game UI at a glance:

At the top-left corner of the screen are your character’s vitals. The pink bar is your health, the blue bar is your mental energy and the yellow bar is your stamina bar. The red bar is your hunger level. Let’s discuss the two most important vitals first:

Stamina

The yellow bar on the top-left corner of the screen shows your current stamina levels. Stamina points will deplete whenever you do some physical task. You can see the yellow bar decreasing as you lose stamina. The harder the task, the more stamina points you will lose. Sleeping in your house is the best way to regain full stamina, but there’s another way:

Hunger

The fourth bar shows your hunger levels. You can be hungry and can still do physical tasks, but if you want to regain stamina points during the day and don’t want to sleep often, you should snack on food.

Fruits and some veggies can give a nice little boost, but if you eat cooked food, the hunger bar will fill up faster, making you feel more energetic, and this will help you regain stamina points at a much faster rate during the day, without sleeping.

The pink health bar goes down only when your character gets hurt. while harvesting nettle leaves, my character got stung by the hairlike filaments on the leaves, which reduced the health bar a bit. Some tasks may be hurtful, so pay attention to the health bar and your character’s reaction.

The blue bar is a bit of a mystery to me. The game says it’s mental energy. I am guessing it could be connected to magic and you lose mental energy points if you cast spells. It’s a cozy witchy game, so there are spells. No doubt about it! 😀

Menu Items

– There are three menu items below the vital stats bars on the upper-left side of the screen. Press J to open the “active tasks” menu – it displays your current quests.

– Press “R” to access the recipes section. Here you will find all unlocked recipes. You can unlock a recipe if you discover new ingredients while exploring, whether through farming, finding seeds and plants in wooden chests, or talking to NPCs.

– Press N to open the journal. Your character pens down all her experiences in the journal, do give it a read. In the journal menu, you will find these tabs:

Player: Displays the same health, mental energy, and stamina bars. Below them are your current skill levels. You can level up your gardening mining, and cooking skills by performing the corresponding activity. So if you are only into planting crops, and flower plants, then expect your gardening skills to improve. As long as you keep planting and harvesting crops, the gardening skill level bar increases bit by bit. You gain a level, when the bar is full.

Tutorials: Quite handy, especially when you unlock new activities and features while exploring. The tutorial section updates with new guides so keep an eye on it.

Characters: Click on a character and view their info page. You can view their age, gender, pronouns, occupation, hobbies, the items they sell, etc. You will also get to know more about them by reading a short description. This part gets updated whenever you meet a new NPC while exploring the town.

Did you notice that green bar below an NPC’s pronouns/occupation? That’s the friendship level. I have explained about it in the Building Friendships section. You can build friendships by gifting the right items to a character and gain favors once level up your friendships with them. Leveling up friendships with merchants unlocks new items in their store.

World: Provides snippets about new locations you have stumbled upon while exploring.

Achievements: All your unlocked Steam achievements can be found in this place.

Action Menu

The lower part of the screen is the quick access menu, also known as the action bar. I have explained this in this guide’s “Quick Menu Items” section. Check it out!

The current date, day, season, and time are displayed in the top-right corner of the screen. Below you will see a blue bar with sun and sleep icons. It shows the day and night cycle. When the bar fills up, your character dozes off wherever they are and ends up in their bed.

You will find two more menu items in the bottom-left corner of the screen – Inventory (I) and Map (M). Press I to access Inventory and M to open Map.

The map shows your character’s current location. Important destinations are displayed by pins. Move your mouse cursor on a pin to know more about that location. You can zoom in on a map by clicking the magnifying glass.

Get Tools from Tin

You can buy/upgrade tools from Tin’s shop. On the game’s first day, Tin will lend her tools when you meet her. Click on the mailbox to receive three tools as welcome gifts – A watering can to water crops, a sickle to cut down grass, and a hammer. Meet Tin ASAP to obtain the rest of the tools. Check the map and look for Tin’s Tinkery:

Shovel: Dig holes in the ground to discover new resources. Go to the beach to find sparkly mounds. Move near a mound and dig. You might find some resources. Make sure you dig a mound that sparkles.

Axe: Can be used to cut down small to medium trees and logs scattered around your house.

Pickaxe: Used for breaking rocks into smaller stones. An upgraded pickaxe can break larger rocks and could be a perfect tool for mining.

Hammer: The hammer’s main use is to store furniture in your inventory so that it can be moved to another location. Inside your home, move closer to a furniture item, such as the bed. Now equip the hammer and click to store the bed in the inventory. From the inventory, you can move the bed and place it in a new location.

You can upgrade tools once you have earned enough coins. Go to Tin, and start the conversation by pressing E. Choose “I’d Buy something”. In the shop section, scroll down and purchase the following upgraded tools:

• Silver shovel – 500 coins
• Silver axe – 1500
• Silver pickaxe – 1600
• Silver sickle – 300
• Silver watering can – 500

Upgraded tools will be way superior to basic tools and can be used to extract higher-grade resources. For instance, the upgraded sickle can be used to cut the red variant of the crystal wheat grass. The basic one can only cut the yellow crystal wheat grass. The silver watering can will store more water than the basic can.

You can also purchase the following resources from Tin. Can be used for crafting/smelting*:

• 3 Iron Chunks – 5 coins (needs 1 iron. Use pickaxe to mine iron)
• Iron Bar – 20 (You must have at least 2 iron chunks to purchase the iron bar).
• Copper Bar – 20 (Mine 2 copper ore before purchasing this)

*There are some purchase prerequisites before you buy the above 3 resources.

Other ingredients such as ash (10 coins), and glass (25 coins) can be bought from Tin. hammer costs 75 coins. As you progress, new resources and tools might be available.

How to Pay Tin for the Basic Tools

Tin will sell all basic tools for 200 coins, but she is generous and doesn’t need the money now. You can pay later. Once you have earned a lot of coins, move to Tin’s hut and press E to begin a conversation with her. Choose “I’d Buy Something”. From the shop menu, click on “200 coins” to pay for all the basic tools.

Quick Menu Items – What to Put?

Prioritize items based on their usefulness and put them in the quick menu, aka action menu or hotbar. The action menu is displayed at the bottom of the screen. There are slots numbered 1-9, which are nothing but hotkeys. For instance, if you have put an item in slot number 3, pressing 3 on the keyboard will let you equip it.

When it comes to the most useful items, it’s always the tools. After obtaining all basic tools from Tin, press “I” to open the inventory. Click on all tools one by one and drop them on the topmost row of the inventory. You will now see them in the Quick menu at the bottom. Press the hotkey to equip a tool.

The shovel, axe, pickaxe, watering can and sickle should be permanently put on the first five slots of the quick menu. For the rest of the slots, you can add seeds or quest-related items.

To place furniture items, you must first put them on the quick menu before placing them on the floor. Press I to open the inventory, click on a furniture item, and then click on an empty slot on the top row. Exit and you will see that item in the quick menu. Click on the furniture item or press the hotkey to equip it. Now click to place the furniture in the designated area.

Choose Community Box over Magibuy

The best way to make money is to sell items and resources. You can sell them through Magibuy, a DIY seller machine that lets you choose items to sell and get instant cash, or visit Aurel’s shop and hit the community box to sell items to the town residents. Here’s where you can find them:

The Magibuy in the Town:

Community Box near Aurel’s Shop:

Selling items through Magibuy gives instant coins, whereas you will have to first put items in the community box and come back the next in-game day to collect your earnings.

I recommend the community box to sell items as they fetch a higher price. Granted Magibuy gives instant cash, but the price of the same item sold through it is quite lower than the community box.

As an example, I have posted screenshots of the receipts of both outlets for earnings comparison:

Birch water was sold for only 4 coins through Magibuy

The same birch water was sold 4x through the community box.

Some items may not be sold through the community box the very next day, and you may have to wait for a few more days to clear the sale.

Take a Look at Lily’s Crafts

Lily is cute, and so are her crafts. Meet her in this location, shown in the map screenshot below:

Move near and talk to her by pressing “E”. Choose “Can I take a look…”

Under shop, you can buy the following crafting recipes- Small wax candles, compost bin, raised bed crafting recipes, etc. Keep visiting Lily to discover new crafts.

You can unlock new blueprints for crafting, such as the apiary at Lily’s shop once you are friends with her. She is a bit of an introvert (Like me!) so you must increase your friendship with her to unlock new items at the shop.

To build trust and friendship you can gift her planks and rocks. She also likes ice cream and maple syrup.

A Note on Gifts and Building Friendships

In Garden Witch Life, giving gifts builds friendships and it can unlock new opportunities. You can unlock new items if you increase friendships with NPCs like Lily, Aurela, and May.

You can gift an item to an NPC (Non-player character) only once on an in-game day.

To give something as a gift, move closer to an NPC and press E, next choose “I have a gift for you”. Click to select an item and click on the empty slot on the left section, under the NPC’s name. Now click on the “Gift” button. If an NPC likes a gift, you will score positive friendship points, which increases the friendship levels with that NPC. If you score 0 points, it means they are neutral to that gift. If an NPC doesn’t like a gift you score negative friendship points, which decreases the friendship level with that person.

To view the friendship level with an NPC, press the N key, click on “Characters”, and then click on a character. You will see a green bar on their info screen. The bar displays the friendship level and fills up when you score positive friendship points. Fill the bar to level up friendships and you will unlock new items or get some quests from NPCs.

Learn Baking from May

Visit May’s cozy bakery “Succulent Sweets”. Move near her, press E and you will get a list of some of the most delicious sweet treats, such as apple juice, bun, cake, bread, chamomile tea, cherry juice, chocolate chip cookies, coffee, croissants, cupcake, custard tart, strawberry pancakes etc. You can find her in this area:

You can also craft/prepare your delicacies at May’s place. You will learn a simple recipe to make your dish as soon as your adventure begins:

May asks you to choose any of three dishes: The Moon cupcake, sun cupcake, and star cupcake. You can also choose cool drinks like green tea, coffee, and hot chocolate. After selecting a sweet treat and drink, you can eat them and sleep in May’s comfy little room.

The next day, you can help May prepare a special “Moon Cake”. Baking it together with her will be so much fun!

Here’s how to make your first cake:

– Go to the pink fridge and take eggs, butter and milk. From the fridge menu, drag and drop the items to your inventory on the right.

– Move to the pantry to find flour and sugar. Drag and drop them into the inventory. Doing this will unlock a new pudding recipe.

– Go to the mixer, and click on cake batter. You will see the recipe with a list of ingredients:

1 flour, 1 egg, 1 milk, 1 butter and 1 sugar.

– Click on Make it. Now that you have the cake batter ready, it’s time to bake it.

– Move closer to the oven, press E, and select cake batter from the list. Now click on “Make it”. Your moon cake is ready!

There are 24 new baking recipes to learn – open the oven to view them. You can unlock recipes once you discover one of the ingredients to make a baked product. Explore to discover new ingredients. Growing certain crops can also help you discover new recipes at the bakery.

Get Seeds from Aurel’s Shop

You can purchase a variety of seeds from Aurel. Seeds should then be sown on the ground to grow crops. After harvesting crops, you can use the ingredients to cook food. Here’s a list of seeds, cooking tools, wallpapers, and other ingredients available from Aurel: