Wytchwood is a new, fairytale-like video game story from indie developers Alientrap. This Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley-like crafting game is adorable, story-rich, and unique, letting players deep-dive into a strange tale of an old woman who made a contract with a goat.
The Story of Wytchwood
This pretty indie game follows an old woman who has lost her memories. She wakes one day to find a talking goat who tells her that she won't get her memories back unless she brings him 12 souls. The old woman must travel to the far reaches of her world, over snowy mountains, teaming forests, and dangerous villages to bring the goat h contract. Without the 12 souls, she will never remember who she is, and the young sleeping woman on the altar in her home will never awaken.
Players will have to unlock the locations and their magical portal-like Wytchwood shortcuts to find their way easily between each picturesque location, picking up ingredients for spells and other items to help out along the way. The game is quite the little adventure, but how long will it take to complete?
The Length of Wytchwood
Wytchwood features 14 chapters: a beginning, an ending, and a chapter for each of the 12 souls. Each of the three groupings of four souls can be completed in any order. For example, the Bear, Leech, Ox, and Snake are the first four, but these four can be completed in any order.
- First Thing's First
- The Bear
- The Leech
- The Ox
- The Snake
- The Ram
- The Rat
- The Cat
- The Fish
- The Stag
- The Hog
- The Wolf
- The Hawk
- The Sleeping Maiden
Players can expect to spend about nine to eleven hours deep in Wytchwood's different biomes, looking for everything from grasshoppers to mosquitoes to three little sheep missionaries. At the time of this writing, Wytchwood is about $20 USD (though currently on sale through Steam), making it a pretty good balance of story length to cost. This game doesn't feel like it will have a whole lot of replay value, however. The story is fairly linear and there don't seem to be many hidden secrets for completionists to look for.
Similar indie titles with deep stories and unique styles also tend to run for about 10-20 hours total; for example, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is about 12 hours, Voice of Cards is about 15 hours per playthrough, and It Takes Two hits at around 15 hours.
Wytchwood is available for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
