Quantum Witch: where religious cults collide with 80s Spectrum games

This queer emancipation story is set in a cosy pixellated art world but all is not what it seems. You’ll tend your flock, pick some flowers – and also have to dethrone God

The realm of Hus is a rural idyll, where happy villagers wander the marketplace and young shepherdess Ren tends to her flock while her partner, Tyra, fixes up their cottage. It’s almost as though they are all living in a cosy farming simulator, created by a benevolent game developer. But are they? Or is it just an illusion cast by an evil deity, trapping them in a horrifying pixellated facade?

This is the delightfully “meta” setup to Quantum Witch, a pixel art platformer by lone developer Nikki Jay. Heavily inspired by old LucasArts adventures and the legendary Dizzy series on the ZX Spectrum, it’s a comedy game with a serious autobiographical heart. Jay grew up in a right wing religious sect based in the north-east of England with an incredibly enclosed perspective. “They were obsessed with the end of the world,” she says. “They believed it could happen at anytime and that all the wicked people would be destroyed: so I had to be good. It was extremely oppressive.”