Reviews by Kinetic Mouse Car

Your human is the wise woman of her village. She performs rituals and other services for the local people. But now she is sick and unresponsive with a curse of unknown origin. Who will heal her? As her faithful dog, this task has been placed on your canine shoulders.

Gameplay
I love this game.

I'll admit that I imagined it would be a generic plucky fetch-quest style game with a predictable yet endearing storyline. The Wise-Woman’s Dog blew my expectations out of the water with its complexity, mechanics, and dynamic world. We are transported back into the Bronze Age where we find ourselves amid the Hittite Empire.

Historically, it was believed that dogs could absorb magic, like a sponge. In the game, the dog protagonist literally carries spells and blessings to place on objects around the map. The mechanics illustrating this are the best part of the game. Due to your canine sense of smell, you can detect the presence of blessings and curses.

This is where your human stores the tools she needs for her job. There’s no latch or seal on it—she keeps it shut in a way only a wise-woman can open.

Or maybe an especially clever dog.

You can smell a security blessing lingering on it.

Excuse me while I rave about it.

The security blessing, for instance, keeps a chest sealed shut. Removing the blessing allows you to open it. The blessing can be applied elsewhere in the game to utilize its sealing effects. When inverted it becomes an insecurity curse with its own applications. With twelve (including inverted) possible spells to play with, the gameplay is full of possibility.

I applaud the implementation because it has features that make the gameplay as smooth as possible, particularly with spell management. Notably, there is a spell section that lists the location of your blessings/curses. With a single click, you can teleport yourself to the spell’s location or simply fetch the spell. In this case, the game automatically travels there, retrieves it, and returns to where you were standing. You can even have it inverted for you.

The security blessing on the city stela, in the city center, which holds something closed (fetch it); inverted, it holds something open (fetch and invert it)

I spent much of the gameplay marveling at this convenience. You can also use the clickable map at the top of the screen to travel and keep track of objects of interest scattered around. Nifty, since the dog protagonist can only carry one object at a time. But all of this you will know about if you’ve played the game.

There is some confusion regarding the primary objective in the city portion of the game, and by objective, I mean something more specific than Mission Save Your Human. Do we find someone who can identify the curse? Do we need a substance to make a cure? The answer is simple: (Spoiler - click to show)Acquire the gold amulet.

It wasn’t until I reached for the hints that I realized that the bulk of the gameplay is centered on (Spoiler - click to show)accumulating enough money to buy the amulet by collecting (or in some cases, stealing) valuable items to sell to a woman in the bazaar. The gold amulet was not just a small piece in a puzzle; It was the item you need to deal with your human’s curse.

Once this was clear, gameplay was smooth sailing. I didn’t need to (Spoiler - click to show)try to find answers about the curse. I just needed shekels! Objective identified, I was able to finish the game on my own. (Once you buy the gold amulet, the game is clear that you have everything you need to save your human.)

I liked that you don’t need to cover every puzzle to win the game, but there is still incentive to go beyond what’s required.

Story
Historical backstory
As a work of historical fantasy, The Wise-Woman’s Dog is a blend of historical facts and artistic license regarding Bronze Age culture, economics, politics, religion, technology, and more. It’s difficult to walk away from this game without learning something about this time in human history.

Throughout the gameplay there are green links that offer more historical information in the form of green-bordered info boxes. These were fantastic and full of insight without being too lengthy. Some even have pictures! They do a great job at explaining the terms (to name a few: pithos, stela, shekels) encountered in the game. They also clarify what parts of the game are based in historical accuracy and which lean towards artistic license.

The game’s lengthy description may be overwhelming, but the gameplay’s premise is not centered on understanding dates, places, conflict, and political figures. While it may be historical fiction, meeting its objectives does not require you to process a heavy backstory. And yet, there are plenty of opportunities to dive into historical background if you wish.

After casually reading the in-game fact boxes over several hours of gameplay I looked at the game’s description and was pleasantly surprised to find that I could follow it quite clearly. Not so dense after all!

The Wise-Woman’s Dog manages to maintain a light-hearted atmosphere by skirting around, though not outright ignoring, some of the not-so-pleasant realities of life during the Bronze Age. Subjects such as slavery, animal sacrifice, and violence are carefully handled. In fact, the author describes this game as “cozy,” and I agree with that.

Maybe next we’ll get a game set in the Iron Age.

Immediate story
I was expecting the gameplay to be infused with more immediate story. I thought that going to the city would mean learning about the curse, who put it on your Human, details about how the curse worked. The gameplay is instead (Spoiler - click to show) whittled down to acquiring the gold amulet. I don’t think this is a flaw, though, since the game opts for simplicity with the story to balance out the technicality of the puzzles.

Once you (Spoiler - click to show)have the gold amulet, the gameplay is more akin to a fun day at the market. A new section of the bazaar can even be discovered!

Characters
While details on our canine protagonist are limited, it’s hard not to feel smitten by their resourcefulness and determination. And while they do things that aren’t particularly dog-like, the writing always conveys the game’s world from a dog’s perspective. Surprisingly, (Spoiler - click to show)we never get a chance to interact with our Human after healing her. Are we a good dog? I need answers.

I found the characters to be dynamic and interesting, especially since they are of different social standings and skillsets. Some will even move to other parts of the map during the gameplay. I loved how (Spoiler - click to show)fixing the dam causes Iyali to rally the village children playing by the river to tell them the story of Tarhunt, a story that we can sit and listen to!

“Now! Who wants to hear a story?” Iyali raises her voice over the sound of the river, and the children come running.

As if she had to ask. This also serves as clever foreshadowing since we explore the Temple of Tarhunt in the city!

I like that we can (Spoiler - click to show) give Anzi a token for six goats so she can decide who to marry, even if we don’t get to see who she chooses. It would have been nice if she gave us another pudding :(

Visual design
The game has a light mode and dark mode which is always helpful for me since dark mode is easier on my eyes in terms of brightness. Light mode has black text and a light bronzed singed background that gives the impression of parchment paper. Dark mode is, well, self-explanatory: black background with tan text.

You might feel overwhelmed at all the colour-coded links and boxes on the screen, but you soon adapt to its appearance. Plus, there are additional appearance settings that you can tinker with. Options!

Conclusion
The Wise-Woman’s Dog is a game that reminds you of why you love interactive fiction, of why you choose to devote hours of your time to sitting and playing at a computer.

It’s fantastic in all departments: protagonist and NPCs, implementation, puzzle mechanics, and more. It gives the sense of an author going above and beyond to create a work that exceeds expectations. I have high hopes for it in this year’s IFComp.