Spellgarden Games has unveiled Ritual of Raven, a new pixel-art farming sim on Steam that puts a magical spin on the genre popularised by Stardew Valley. Rather than tending crops by hand, players cannot touch plants directly and instead use a deck of tarot cards to programme a stone construct to water and care for their fields, turning the familiar farming loop into a puzzle-like automation task. The twist aims to differentiate it from the many farming sims that have followed Stardew Valley's formula, while still delivering the same sense of cosy, satisfying progression.

Beyond farming, players interact with village characters including Sage, a witch who trades her missing familiar for the player before vanishing, leaving them with a raven companion and a grimoire to guide them. The game also features a fishing mechanic reimagined as a claw-machine minigame for catching shadows, three separate town museums for donating collected items, and home decoration options, allowing players to spend hours away from the main story. Reviewers note the construct-programming system takes time to master and that the game is more linear than open-world alternatives like Fields of Mistria, with some side content locked behind intricate main-story requirements.