The last few games I have reviewed have been monstrous in size and demanding in time commitments. As I stagger away from finishing Immortals Fenix Rising I needed sometime simple and chilled. A pallet cleanser if you will, something to realign my equilibrium and reignite my zen state. Like a bowl of warm comfort food on a winters day, along came Wytchwood to give me exactly what I needed. 

Worst Witch

In Wytchwood, surprisingly you play as a Witch in a fantasy-inspired world, or at least I think you do. You awake in your hovel with little memory of recent events. To make matters worse a goat has used your spellbook as an hors d'oeuvre which leaves you a little light on recipes. As it turns out this fiendish Capra Hircus knows a bit more about your situation than he was initially letting on. Those of you who are observant will have noticed, you have a cauldron for a head and bird feet but that is all explained as the story progresses. Within a short amount of time, you will be embarking on a soul gathering quest to wake a mysterious sleeping beauty and possibly expand your knowledge on modern herbal remedies.

Soon after meeting the devious Goat you prise open a portal that leads to a hub where you can teleport to the other areas of the game. This is a godsend as you will be doing a lot of hopping back and forth; gathering ingredients from other areas. Each of the zones has its own assortment of creatures, characters and mystical beasts to interact with. As you progress the story, more of these will unlock and thus adding more portals to the hub.

Witching in Watercolours

The whole game is presented in a beautiful side on aesthetic with exquisitely hand-drawn assets. The angle isn’t fully top-down, more side on than anything and assets appear to spring up off the ground like animated cardboard props. It all looks very much like a children’s pop up book enchanted to life and very much reminds me of the visuals in Don’t Starve. I love how the quests play on the many children’s fables such as the Big Bad Wolf or Little Red Riding Hood.

What is impressive is the detail the artists have gone into with many of the areas, which can often be lacking with these stylised types of visuals. Even in the opening scene I just love how atmospheric the Witch’s house is with cauldrons, books and a whole manner of spooky paraphernalia. The many spell effects are also great with unique animations that light up the screen as you dish out misfortune and death.

Fetch

If I jot the structure of the game down, on paper it does sound like one long fetch quest but that honesty doesn’t do the title justice. You essentially gather items from each of the various areas, craft them into other items or use them directly. Most of the main quests will involve you concocting a new item or recipe that will involve previously acquired items. If I can give you one piece of advice is always gather more than you need because you will inevitably require more down the road. When you first arrive in the forest collecting twigs and leaves in a simple as picking them up. A few basic tools will add another stage to this with digging up clay or cutting down reeds. 

As you wander around you can examine the various beings and items in this mystical world and discover their weaknesses with Witch Sight. This mode also pauses gameplay and highlights items you can pick up or interact with. This is handy as with the pop-up nature of the graphics, sometimes items can be obscured by the environment. The developers have also used a clever fade-out technique to keep the character in view when behind objects. 

Your Grimoire is constantly updated with new items you can make and spells you may wish to use. Just like the games main visuals, this book along with the map and inventory screen are all wonderfully presented. Each quest you pick up can be tracked with a list of objectives that cross off as you progress. This can make the game feel a little too on rails sometimes but it also lets you relax and enjoy the ride.

Witch Life

So I will say this game is not for everyone as the gameplay loop is very tame, relying on a strong narrative and aesthetic personality to keep players engaged. Whether Wytchwood is for you depends on what you value in a game and how you like to play. Where the game does absolutely exclude charm from every pixel it does lack any real agency over how the story progresses, which I thought was a shame. It would have been a really cool feature to add a choice about how you dispatch the owners of the souls you must reap. 

One way developers often compensate for a lack of action is with puzzle-solving but here the game also is very light on the ground, being more of a memory test as to where to find specific items. Even the task of finding out where to go is revealed on the game's map with icons indicating where to go. 

While you cannot attack enemies in the conventional sense, you do have many ways to deal with the beings that would do you harm. Often your spells will leave creatures incapacitated allowing you to shave their hair off or bop them over the bonce with your axe. Also watching fluffy forest critters explode into meaty chunks as they prod your trap never gets old. I actually like that they didn't go for the obvious ‘wand firing bolts of lighting’ cliche and instead you deal with enemies in a more thoughtful way. However, those who like a more hands-on combat experience may find this off-putting, at least initially. 

I also think that given the theme of the game it was a missed opportunity not to have a more involved method of producing spells and concoctions. Aside from coming back to hand souls into the goat; you never really have any need to return to your hovel and I would have loved to have a more involved brewing process using the cauldron. Additionally, collecting seeds from around the various zones and growing your own crops could have also given the gameplay loop an additional meaty layer; breaking up the gathering a little. 

Is it PC?

This game runs beautifully on PC and given the graphical style I suspect it will run on low-end systems just as well. I also never came across one graphical issue or bug in my fifteen hours of play and I wish all games would launch this polished. The controls work perfectly well for either mouse/keyboard or controller, I opted for the former for my playthrough given how much inventory usage there is.

The sound effects are all solid and offer some good feedback; whether you're catching fairies or digging up cobblestones. Each of the zones has its own low key musical score and they are enjoyable and well placed. The music in the forest actually reminded me a little of the title music for the Last of US. The varied set of instruments used in the music does help bolster the wonderful atmosphere the visuals create. 

Conclusion 

I always try to review the game in front of me and not the game I would have wanted. However, sometimes I do think a few additional layers to a gameplay loop can elevate the experience and bring in a lot more interest. With that said the game we have here is such a wonderful creation of fantastical quests and monstrous beasts it’s so easy to get lost for a few hours in the chilled out gameplay. However, there were times that the prolonged crafting/gathering chains would overstay their welcome and I longed for another reason to be in this stunning fanstary world.

I have really enjoyed my time with Wytchwood and I think given the playtime to completion; the price point is spot on. This has clearly been a passionate project by the team at Alientrap and I hope more people decide to enjoy this game world that had me thinking back to the stories I used to read as a child. As there are very few narrative choices I’m not sure I would run through it again but I know my son has been asking if he could play it while he was passing my computer. I am very much looking forward to what this talented team come up with next. Also a big thank you to Whitehorn Digital for providing a review copy of the game.