Visual Novel / Berrywitched!

From childhood on, you've heard bewildering stories about the forest. According to legend, people who wander into it disappear. After taking a small walk through said forest as an adult and getting lost, you pass out and awaken to find yourself in the care of a curious young woman. Her name is Strawberry and she claims to be the Strawberry Witch.

Berrywitched! is a (very light) horror game. It's creator Smilestrawbunny's first game and was made in Tyranobuilder in roughly two weeks for the Strawberry to the Heart game jam 2022. It's available for free on it's itch.io page.

---

Contains examples of:

• Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear why the Strawbunnies feed the protagonist the cake made of Strawberry's remains in the What a Glorious Cake ending. It could be they were just following her wishes to use said cake to make people happy. Or it could be their way of taking revenge on the callous jerk who drove their creator to suicide. It could also be the Strawbunnies were just looking for a place to put the cake and weren't expecting the protagonist to eat it at all.
• Asshole Victim: The protagonist in any of the bad endings that has them killed. In the routes leading up to them the protagonist is shown being nasty and cruel towards Strawberry, to the point it makes her cross the Despair Event Horizon, making their impending demise feel more than a little deserved. Downplayed, as their callous behavior in those routes is implied to be a result of depression-induced paranoia rather than them being a terrible person.
• Bad Boss: Strawberry's bosses sent her off on an assignment to grant people's wishes without her having even learned wish granting magic and without telling her it's a suicide forest and that everyone's greatest desire is probably death. Lampshaded by the main character in the good ending, where they express disdain for them for putting her in that situation in the first place.
• The Bully: The protagonist becomes this towards Strawberry if the more abrasive dialogue options are chosen, continually making fun of her for her naive demeanor and her lacking powers. Deconstructed, as their constant callousness towards her eventually causes Strawberry to snap and either commit suicide or kill the protagonist with plans to follow them soon after.
• Cruelty Is the Only Option:
  • If you're too mean to Strawberry at the start, the game will give you no other option than to eat the Strawbunny she gives you later on.
  • In a similar vein, acting too apathetic in the bakery will railroad you into a route that has only bad endings.
• Cute Witch: Strawberry, a perky young girl with pink hair who claims that she's the Strawberry Witch.
• Deadpan Snarker: The protagonist can make some pretty snarky comments about Strawberry and her profession.
• Death Seeker: The protagonist is revealed to be this, having come to the forest in hopes of disappearing like all the others before them. Turns out they're not the only one who came to the forest with that goal.
• Downer Ending: Nearly every ending but one ends on a bleak note. Two of the endings have Strawberry commit suicide, two endings have the protagonist killed by Strawberry after she snaps from their mistreatment.
• Easily Forgiven: After reading her diary, the protagonist finally understands how hard Strawberry has had it, leading to them completely forgiving her for knocking them out and tying them up so they won't leave the bakery.
• Enchanted Forest: The game's main setting is a creepy forest people are said to disappear in.
• Featureless Protagonist: The protagonist is supposed to represent the player, so they have no distinguishable features and never appear on-screen. Their personality is also rather bland and depends almost entirely on the player's actions.
• Food-Based Superpowers: Strawberry's magic is linked to, of course, strawberries and sweet things in general. This is a huge point of insecurity for her, as she has trouble fulfilling other people's desires with her strawberry-magic.
• Foreshadowing:
  • A lot in regards to the protagonist's true reason for coming to the forest:
    • The protagonist is very insistent that they have to do what they came to the forest for alone.
    • They also don't seem very concerned about their survival, coming to the forest without any camping equipment or food.
    • Their overly sour demeanor in routes where you choose to be mean makes a lot more sense in the context of them being heavily depressed.
  • If the protagonist chooses to read Strawberry's diary they 'll notice that a page is missing. In the What a Glorious...Cake? ending it's revealed that the page was hidden in the kitchen and that it's Strawberry's suicide note.
• Gingerbread House: Strawberry's bakery is entirely made of strawberry cake. The protagonist can ask if it's edible, prompting Strawberry to panic and say it's not actually built out of cake. Upon further prodding, she admits that it actually is made of real cake, but implores the protagonist not to eat her house.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: As the game progresses, it becomes clear that living in the middle of the forest with only the Strawbunnies for company hasn't done Strawberry's mental health any favors. The fact that every single visitor she's ever gotten has ended up committing suicide doesn't help.
• Heal the Cutie: In the Good End, the protagonist learns that Strawberry has been trapped in this forest and is required to grant the wishes of her patrons. The problem is their wishes are to die (including the protagonist) which is the entire reason they even came to this forest. This has slowly degraded Strawberry's mentality over time as she has seen so many people die or simply found their corpses. Realizing this, and sad over the trauma this has caused her, the protagonist abandons their plans for suicide. Strawberry hesitantly frees them, and cries in relief as the protagonist compliments her and assures her she is a good person who is just desperate to save lives. They also remind her that other peoples decisions are not her fault, and she is doing the best she can. The scene then fast-forwards an unknown amount of time. The protagonist either visits frequently or lives at the café, and Strawberry has begun emotionally healing from her trials. While people still come to the restaurant, leave, and die, Strawberry has taken the protagonist's advice and has begun trying to live day to day. She also is spending a lot of time with the protagonist (which probably helps).
• Innocently Insensitive: The protagonist is often pretty rude to Strawberry, seemingly without realizing it. More than once they make derogatory comments about her intelligence and patronize her with Strawberry being just too desperate for companionship to call them out. In the Wicked Witch ending they also eat the Strawbunny she gifted them in front of her and afterwards get confused at her horrified reaction.
• Implied Love Interest: It's pretty obvious in some choices that there's some romantic attraction between the main character and Strawberry. In the good ending, they're living together, working to better aid those who end up in the forest. It's never actually spelled out whether they're actually dating or not, but their dialogue has romantic undertones.
• Minimalist Cast: The cast consists of you, Strawberry and the Strawbunnies. Other visitors to the bakery are mentioned but only posthumously.
• Multiple Endings: The game has five different endings that all depend on the protagonist's actions in the story.
  • Wicked Witch: The protagonist eats the Strawbunny Strawberry had created for them. Strawberry does not take this well and retreats to the kitchen. The protagonist follows her, confused about why Strawberry would be upset with them for eating something edible. After one insensitive comment about the situation too many, Strawberry snaps and forces the protagonist into her oven, burning them alive while she watches with a smile.
  • What a Glorious...Cake?: The protagonist follows Strawberry into the kitchen after their previous bullying causes her to run away. They end up walking in on Strawberry preparing to kill herself due to despair over not being able to help the protagonist. When the protagonist confronts her, Strawberry suffers a complete mental breakdown and ends it with repeatedly stabbing the protagonist. She then turns their corpse into a strawberry cake, giggling as she promises the protagonist she'll join them soon.
  • What a Glorious Cake: The protagonist chooses to wait for Strawberry after their callousness causes her to flee the room. After waiting for quite a while, the protagonist falls asleep on one of the chairs. When they wake up again, they are greeted by the sight of a group of Strawbunnies offering them a delicious looking strawberry cake. The protagonist takes a slice, but when they start eating the cake tastes funny to them. Taking a closer look at the cake they discover to their horror that it's filled with human meat. The protagonist flees the bakery, traumatized by what they've seen and more determined than ever to do what they originally come to the forest to do.
  • The Loop: The protagonist takes the gardening shears to cut themselves free from Strawberry's vines and escape together with Strawbunny. Strawberry notices and starts giving chase. While running, the protagonist loses Strawbunny, but is too scared to stop and pick them back up again. Just when they think they've finally escaped, they stumble and hit their head on a rock, losing consciousness. When the protagonist wakes up, they hear Strawberry's voice asking if they're okay in the same manner she did when they met her at the beginning of the game, implying that all of this has happened before and the protagonist's memories have been erased.
  • Good End: The protagonist chooses to read Strawberry's diary. It's revealed that the forest is actually a pocket dimension Strawberry was sent to to fulfill peoples' greatest desires, in order to prevent them from committing suicide. However, due a combination of having insufficient magic for the job and a lack of experience, Strawberry was never able to keep the visitors before the protagonist from leaving for the forest again and doing what they originally came to do. Understanding Strawberry's plight, the protagonist chooses to stay with her, after the two have a heart-to-heart upon her return. The game ends with both of them living in the bakery together and doing their best to fulfill the desires of every visitor they might get.
• Pet the Dog: Even if you play the main character as an abrasive Jerkass, they'll decide to pretend to believe Strawberry's lie about her house being inedible, mostly because they feel bad for making her nervous about someone eating her home.
• Pocket Dimension: What the forest actually is. It's only accessible to people who are suicidal. Strawberry was assigned there to grant their desires to persuade them not to kill themselves.
• Poor Communication Kills: There are a few instances where Strawberry isn't being upfront with the protagonist about her situation, and this can lead the protagonist to being distrusting. This is especially true in The Loop ending, where Strawberry doesn't utter a single word to try and stop the protagonist after they bolt from the bakery... shortly after having been just taken hostage. The protagonist only comes to understand Strawberry's plight after actively reading her diary rather than running away, but they would be forgiven for running from a "crazed kidnapper".
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Strawbunnies, sentient little fruit-creatures who look like bunnies and are tiny enough to fit on a fingertip.
• Rosehaired Sweetie: Strawberry has light pink hair and is kind and sweet to the protagonist. Downplayed later on. Strawberry is a genuinely kind person whose only goal is to keep more people from killing themselves in the forest, but the lengthy isolation along with repeatedly finding the few visitors she does get dead the next day no matter what she does haven't done wonders for her mental state. She's so desperate to keep the protagonist alive that she's even willing to keep them in the bakery against their will.
• The Secret of Long Pork Pies: In the What a Glorious Cake ending, Strawberry kills herself and the Strawbunnies, per her wish expressed in her suicide note, make her corpse into a strawberry cake. Strawberry does the same to the protagonist in the What a Glorious...Cake? ending when they walk in on her suicide attempt.
• Stable Time Loop: In The Loop ending, the protagonist is knocked unconscious during their escape attempt, and seemingly wakes up at the begining of the game.
• Video Game Caring Potential: Instead of being a paranoid Jerkass, the player can choose to be friendly to Strawberry from the beginning, only getting suspicious when Strawberry gets evasive when they ask about her backstory. This is the easiest way to get the good ending.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You have the option to eat the adorable little Strawbunny. Not only that, after finding it too hard to chew through, the protagonist tears it to pieces to make it more edible, all while Strawberry's watching in horror. However, doing so directly leads to...
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment:
  • Eating the Strawbunny alive gets you on Strawberry's bad side. It also directly leads into the first bad ending in which Strawberry burns you alive in her oven.
  • Being too mean to Strawberry leads to either the What a Glorious Cake or the What a Glorious...Cake? ending. The former has Strawberry commit suicide, with the Strawbunnies making her corpse into a strawberry cake and serving it to the protagonist. The latter has Strawberry inflict this on the protagonist with a promise that she'll join them soon.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Strawberry wants nothing more than to fulfill her visitors' deepest desires so they won't kill themselves. But after years of failure and finding visitor after visitor dead, she's gotten desperate. To the point that when the protagonist tries to leave, she knocks them out and ties them up in her room to keep them from committing suicide.
• Yandere: Strawberry seems rather kind and sweet at first, but behaves increasingly suspiciously, and seems hellbent on preventing the main character from leaving the bakery. Ultimately downplayed. She doesn't have any ill intentions. It turns out that she knows the protagonist is suicidal and is desperate to prevent it at any cost.

---