Seoul, Korea, May 23, 2025 – Team Tapas has announced that their roguelike action game, Garden of Witches, is now available in Early Access on Steam, following two years of development.
Garden of Witches employs the same concept of replayability and randomized skill trees that will be instantly familiar to fans of roguelikes like Hades, but distinguishes itself in multiple ways, complemented by a rich world filled with original characters.
With this global launch, all five chapters of the game’s main story are now available to players for the first time.
On a journey into the unknown reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland, players will explore the titular Garden as a witch named Sil attempts to round up her fellow witches to participate in a tea party to save the Garden from collapsing. Players will need to encounter these other witches one by one and convince them to help save the garden, only to be reminded again and again that just because a witch may look cute, it does not guarantee their amiable cooperation.
Above all else, this is a world where violence talks, and the best way to convince the witches is to physically subdue them first by carefully analyzing their movements and responding appropriately to their extravagant attacks, all of which are unique to each witch. If the witches prove too much for you, you can simply try again, growing stronger with each attempt and perfecting your “build” by combining various elements such as synergies, relics, and weapons. Whether you prefer to rely on your brains or your brawn is entirely up to you.
You can expect to die many times while trying to corral the unruly witches, but death is just another life lesson. The protagonist, Sil, must repeat this same process every year to keep the garden intact and complete the story, but things rarely go her way.
Journey of Team Tapas: From Mobile Hits to the Garden of Witches
What began in 2015 as a small group of friends from a South Korean art high school was able to grow through the global success of its early games — A Girl Adrift and Bistro Heroes, which collectively have over 14 million downloads — into an indie developer able to stand confidently on its own.
Following the model of “cozy” idle games that became popular in the 2010s, the unique setting of A Girl Adrift, in which an expressionless girl drifts alone in the open ocean while “fishing” for various mysterious-looking creatures, allowed it to become a viral hit worldwide and earn Google Play Korea's Most Innovative Game of the Year of 2016 and the Made with Unity Platinum Favorite/Best Indie of May 2017.
Team Tapas followed up this success with Bistro Heroes, an RPG mobile game about a group of hungry warriors who hunt monsters to fill their stomachs. The warriors are lucky enough to stumble upon a restaurant owner willing to cook for them, and as they hunt monsters for food, they learn the secret of the Star Famine that threatens their world. In Bistro Heroes, Team Tapas demonstrated that there is no reason for simple touch controls to be a limit to achieving a complex battle system, and the game was awarded best indie game at the 2019 Korean Game Awards.
Garden of Witches is Team Tapas’s first foray into the action genre and PC development, and builds upon their ability to build unique settings and complex systems as demonstrated in their previous titles.
All of the artwork featured in Garden of Witches was hand-drawn from start to finish using digital tools. By avoiding the use of mechanically repeated textures and formulaic facial expressions, the development team sought to achieve a handmade feel that makes players feel as if they are walking through an illustrated storybook world. The fairytale, dreamlike setting could only be realized in-game through this distinctive art style.
The witches each have their own distinct and multi-dimensional personalities. For example, Fiena may spend most of her time intoxicated and causing mischief, but she can also be incredibly sweet and lovable. On the other hand, the undead duo Rims & Berry have a cute appearance that belies their obsession with flesh and blood. Their bizarre dialogue and eerie combat choreography create an intense experience where the adorable and the creepy collide.
In this way, Garden of Witches is not just a game about defeating enemies, but a storytelling experience that invites players to explore the unique world of the Garden and meet the strange witches who inhabit it.
What’s Next
Following today’s Early Access launch of Garden of Witches, Team Tapas plans to return in the latter half of 2025 with additional endgame content designed to challenge players who have completed the story, while continuing to incorporate user feedback as they finalize the game.
About Garden Of Witches
Garden of Witches is a roguelike filled with elaborate action while still managing to be cozy. As long as you never give up, the garden will be saved! She's counting on you......
Genre: Action Rougelike
Platform: PC (Steam)
Language: English, Chinese (Simplified/Traditional), Japanese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Korean
Developer: Team Tapas Co., Ltd.
Publisher: Team Tapas Co., Ltd.
Release Date: Launching in Early Access on May 23, 2025, at 6PM KST (UTC+9)
Mobile (Google Play, iOS): TBD
Steam Store Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2530470?utm_source=globalPress&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=earlyAccess
Game Trailer: https://youtu.be/5FG6xui4lmU
Official Discord: https://discord.com/invite/QG4tJj2QWR
About Team Tapas
Founded in 2015, Team Tapas is a South Korean indie game developer known for creating titles with adorable artwork, unique stories, and lovable characters. Their previous mobile games, A Girl Adrift with over 10 million global downloads and Bistro Heroes with 3.3 million downloads, have captivated players worldwide. With Garden of Witches, Team Tapas is making its first foray into PC platform.
Developer Website: https://teamtapas.com
Official Discord: https://discord.gg/QG4tJj2QWR
Official YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@teamtapas5143/
Official X: https://x.com/teamtapas/
Official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeamTapas/