Veronica Mars, Phryne Fisher and Miss Marple can pack it in: The most memorable detective since Wytchwood is a witch with a soup pot on her skull who catches creeps in a fairytale world to fulfil an ancient pact.
With some games, it’s just love at first sight: Among the mountain of demos you can try out during Steam Next Fest until 7 October 2021, that was the case for me with the demo of the investigation adventure game Wytchwood. I was immediately attracted by the hand-drawn comic graphics and the bizarre storyline. According to the description, you play a detective in Wytchwood. To be more precise: as a witch, you arrest a whole slew of nasty characters who are marauding in the fairytale world.
The demo starts in the witch’s cottage and you discover that the lady of the house has probably taken the longest nap ever – about a couple of centuries! Then your spell book is empty because a talking goat has attacked the leaves. By the way, you made a pact with the goat at some point, but I don’t know what exactly you committed yourself to.
Gather resources to solve the puzzle
So there’s plenty to do: Looking around the environment, you find reagents such as herbs, mushrooms and nuts and remember the first spells that these reagents are combined to use. Sometimes you make a soporific treat for a bad-tempered dog, conjure up a trap for catching squirrels or concoct a useful potion.
Use the special witch’s eye, which you can activate at the touch of a button, to learn more about objects, animals and the environment. This helps you choose the right spell, or you can use a shovel, net or pickaxe to collect more resources. Wytchwood gives you all the time in the world: if you just want to walk through the beautiful surroundings for a while, you won’t be at a disadvantage. The dreamy, detailed game world invites you to explore and enjoy, and you can complete the linear tasks of the demo without stress or violence. This could also make Wytchwood a good game for children.
What do we like? What remains unclear?
What we like about Wytchwood:
- Both environments playable in the demo are beautifully designed and hand drawn. They convey the feeling as if we were moving through a fold-out picture book that has transported us to a fairytale world.
- The spells so far are all designed to be useful and user-friendly, you don’t have to remember much when searching for resources. Resources grow over time, so there’s plenty of room for trial and error and you’re not out of luck if you aim wrong.
- The heroine of the adventure remains mysterious – why is she wearing a soup helmet, has bird hands and why has she slept for so long? I really want to know more about the witch and her story.
What remains unclear?
- There is some kind of healing spell, but there was no reason to use it in the demo. We don’t know if there will be any fighting scenes, how the three hearts of life visible in the game will work and if the witch can hurt herself.
- The puzzles in the demo were very linear and simple. Whether it will be trickier in the upcoming game areas cannot be foreseen at the moment.
No sooner have you found out what the pact is all about than the demo, which is only available in English, is over after about thirty minutes of play. If you take more time to look around, you will of course need a little longer. The texts are written in simple English, so they are not a closed book even for foreign speakers. For me, at least, it was enough to eagerly await the release, which is still announced for 2021 – I want to know what happens next!
