Wytchwood is a masterpiece of a cozy game, though I didn’t realize it at first.
Stardew Valley has spoiled me rotten as a farming sim and cozy game with all of its delightfully obsessive intricacies. I unfairly brought those expectations to a game that was not Stardew Valley, was not trying to be Stardew Valley, and did not want to be Stardew Valley. And once I stopped comparing the two and instead appreciated Wytchwood for what it wanted to be and not what I thought it should be, the game started to shine as something truly special.
Wytchwood (Alientrap Games) is a solid, clean, and tight RPG where you harvest ingredients for spells, then craft spells out of those ingredients, and finally unleash the spells to progress yourself further through the game. But the magic here is not of a combative nature. In fact, there’s no traditional combat in Wytchwood.
This is a game of cunning instead of grit.
What Is The Premise Of Wytchwood?
You play, simply, as the Witch.
The Witch awakens from a deep sleep in her tree-stump cottage nestled in an (enviously) secret and quiet grove. You’re surrounded by ancient statues and ruins, a decrepit garden, and a locked shrine guarded by a goat—the Goat. I’m sure you can easily guess who he is really supposed to be.
You, as the Witch, have no memories, your grimoire is missing all of its spells, and there’s a Sleeping Maiden you know you must help, thought you don’t remember who she is or why she needs your assistance. Only the Goat knows this, and said knowledge comes at a cost: you need to gather the 12 Souls of great and perilous beasts tormenting the fairytale world of Wytchwood.
I could talk about the stunning storybook visuals, the haunting soundtrack, and how the game is so cleanly and compactly complete in an era of bugged-out launches. All of these points are true, but they’ve been made already by other reviewers.
What makes Wytchwood truly special is how it replicates what I’d assume the life of an actual fairytale witch would be like.
Earning Your Magic
Wytchwood does not have the game mechanics of mana pools, skill points, or level requirements.
If you’re going to cast a spell, then you must first earn the right to cast it. All spells are achieved through hard work and determination. You must study your environment with your “witch eye” ability to learn how to overcome obstacles and defeat enemies with a combination of cunning and sorcery. This unlocks new spells and adds them to your grimoire permanently.
As you learn these spells, you find tools and gather reagents that enable you to assemble your magic.
But you do not blast your opponents with fireballs and lightning bolts. Rather, you disable and beguile them with your spells. Aggressive mosquitos in the Swamp are disabled and made ready for your axe with enchanted smoke bombs. Slithering leeches are dried up with magical spirit salts. Deceptive dryads are set ablaze and halted in their tracks thanks to an ensorcelled cinder box. There’s even a puzzle box used to bewitch tinkering and curious gnomes that not-so-subtly resembles Pinhead’s puzzle box from Hellraiser.
This is all accomplished through magic, and you earn every spell your cast through work and grit. And as you learn more and more spells, a web of requirements and prerequisites starts taking shape as you complete your objectives in the game.
The titular Witch of Wytchwood calls up great and powerful witches from myth and fiction when you see her in action.
I’m referring to the Baba Yaga, the Cut-Wife from Penny Dreadful, the Bog Roosh from Hellboy, Angelique from Dark Shadows, the ancient potion-brewing priestesses in The Immortality Key, Ursula from The Little Mermaid, Frau Totenkinder from Fables, Princess Mombi from Return to Oz, and countless others. The personality of the Witch herself reminds me a bit of Madame Blavatsky, as described in Gary Lachman’s biography, Madam Blavatsky: The Mother of Modern Spirituality.
Wytchwood, knowingly or not, pays true tribute to the broad concept of the occult by accomplishing magic through work and determination instead of leveling up skills like double-cast and mana regeneration.
I am reminded of something I read in Colin Wilson’s The Occult:
Josephus mentions a book of spells and incantations for summoning demons that was in use as early as the first century A.D. Its author was supposed to be King Solomon, who figures in occult mythology as a great magician. A magical work known as The Key of Solomon ranks next to the legendary Emerald Tablets of Hermes Trismegistus as the most celebrated of magical texts.
It exists in many forms, and the reason for this is curious and significant: the text had to be copied out by hand by each person who wished to use it; a printed text would have no virtue. This makes it as clear as could be that the basic necessity for the performance of magic is the mind of the magician himself. He must enter into a deep, intimate relation with the text, for it is his powers that are going to be used.
In the same way, the magician must make his own magical instruments, including pen, ink, water sprinkler, inkwell, sand-shaker, incense, candles, and forge his own knives, sword, hatchet and so on. He must furnish these weapons with engraved wooden handles. He must also choose and inscribe his own wand and staff. The handles of the knives had to be made of boxwood, and the branch had to be cut at one blow; presumably the would-be magician went on making tremendous swipes until he either lopped off a branch or broke the sword…
This sounds similar to what I’ve been describing.
WARNING: There are major end-game spoilers from this point onward.
An Underwhelming End?
The finale of Wytchwood comes off as too simple for it’s own good—at first.
Once the Witch has gathered the 12 Souls and offered them to the Goat, he reveals that the Witch never really existed. She was rather a proxy—a kind of golem—constructed to house a piece of the Sleeping Maiden’s own soul.
For what purpose, though?
We are not given an explicit reason. Something happened to the Sleeping Maiden before she was placed in an enchanted slumber. It’s presumed she was the victim of one (or many) of the 12 beastly creatures you encounter throughout Wytchwood.
And as the Sleeping Maiden laid dying, she called upon anything listening to help her. It was the Goat that answered, a deal was struck, and he would allow her to keep her own soul if she could deliver 12 in exchange. The aforementioned proxy was created—the Witch you play throughout the game—and it was animated with a piece of the Sleeping Maiden’s own essence.
The pact with the Goat is fulfilled when you complete the game, the construct of the Witch falls apart, and the Sleeping Maiden awakens from the enchanted sleep that preserved her. The Goat disembarks with his prizes. Before leaving, he reminds the Sleeping Maiden that if she ever has need to strike another bargain, all she has to do is summon him once more.
And with that, the game ends with the Sleeping Maiden picking up the cauldron-helmet the Witch wore throughout the game.
The sleeping Maiden stares at the cauldron. The cauldron stares back.
The Maiden was the Witch the entire time, and the Witch was the Maiden.
How unsatisfying.
Wytchwood was an incredible game from beginning to end once you found your rhythm and pace within the gameplay… only to then have the plucky old bag of a protagonist die and vanish, as if she never existed.
I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. Many fans on the Wytchwood subreddit shared a similar sentiment of feeling underwhelmed and even disappointed with the ending. The pivotal character was the Witch, and she was never real.
Right?
Taking Up The Mantle
Perhaps not.
First, it is important to remember that the Witch was animated by a piece of the Sleeping Maiden’s spirit. While the Witch’s physical form was a construction of chicken parts, sticks and fabric, her essence survived—and triumphed—as the Sleeping Maiden.
Second, consider the setup of the game. The Witch awakened in a cottage in a grove decorated with statues, mysterious ruins, and a sorcerous garden. Was this entire place created as a stage for the Sleeping Maiden to secure her soul and enact her revenge? Was it sloppy writing on the part of the Wytchwood creators?
I don’t know, since we are given little information.
And since there is little information, I started formulating my own head cannon to fill in the blanks.
At first I assumed that this was the home of the Sleeping Maiden to begin with, and the perfect spot to drop off her proxy construct to begin the game and start off her journey of relearning her grimoire in order to enact her revenge.
But that didn’t make sense. Never once do you feel that is the situation once the game is over.
And then it dawned on me.
The Witch never had a grimoire to begin with. The entire reason why the Goat entered into the bargain with the Sleeping Maiden to begin with was to audition her to be the Witch of the grove where the game begins. The grove was ancient with a storied history, and needed a new occupant. And the Sleeping Maiden’s audition to be that occupant was to build her grimoire for the first time.
If the Sleeping Maiden successfully collected the 12 Souls by learning the witchy arts championed by the Goat, then she’d be a worthy servant indeed, and the keys of the grove would be handed over to her. Thus, the entire game was an an elaborate tryout. And, by the end of the game, not only is the Sleeping Maiden given her life back, but she’s found her calling and home, too.
You (playing as the Witch) were never reclaiming your lost spells for your grimoire. Your were earning them for the first time, proving your worth and mettle as a sorceress to the Goat.
So, you see, the Witch is who the Sleeping Maiden is truly meant to be and is at the game’s conclusion.
There’s been recent precedent for this.
A very similar arc happens to Anya Taylor-Joy’s Thomasin character in The Witch (2015), when the entire movie turned out to be an audition, of sorts, for Thomasin to join a coven of witches at the end of the film, when her entire life prior was over and there was nothing left to return to.
A similar fate befalls Sophia Lillis’ Gretel in Gretel and Hansel (2020). In this film, after the witch of the story is killed, there still must always be a witch within the woods, and without a life to return to, Gretel embarks on her new future as that very witch.
This gives new meaning to the Sleeping Maiden holding the cauldron at the end of the game, staring at it before the credits start to role. In fact, I was deeply hoping that as the camera faded, you’d start to see the maiden put the cauldron on, but not given the total satisfaction of seeing the act complete.
Ah, well, we don’t always get what we want.
Wytchwood is for sale now on all major gaming platforms.
