The Wise-Woman's Dog

I beta-tested this game)

I always question my objectivity when I’ve beta-tested a game – it’s hard to figure out an appropriate critical approach when you’ve spent a bunch of time with a version of the game that’s not the same as the one the mass of players will experience, and on top of that it can be hard to untangle the inevitable feelings of investment that come with helping an author improve their game (at least, I hope that’s what my suggestions are doing!) But even leaving all that aside, there’s no way I wouldn’t be in the tank for a rich, robustly-implemented game that lets you explore the waning days of the Hittite Empire (with footnotes, no less!) and boasts a complex, systems-driven magic system and lets you play as a dog (I like cats just fine, but I’m definitely outside of the IF mainstream in agreeing that canines are man’s best friend).

Starting with the setting, like most I’m by no means super au courant with Bronze Age Anatolia, but it’s a region and era that’s adjacent to a lot of other history that is more accessible: the Homeric epics are notionally happening right next door and Egyptian civilization was reaching one of its period peaks, while there was plenty of confusing back-and-forth warring with the Assyrians and other contemporary powers of Mesopotamia. The Hittites feature in all these stories as antagonists, so it’s fascinating to see something from their perspective; hints of the political situation do leak in from snatches of overheard conversation, and the concomitant footnotes providing needed context, but the dog’s eye view of first an agricultural village, and then a major trading city, do far more to provide a window into this long-lost world. There are relatively crowd-pleasing gags like a tip of the hat to the famously corrupt copper merchant Ea-nāṣir, and what must be an intentional reference to the way a major fire in the Library of Ashurbanipal fired the clay tablets it stored and better preserved them for future archaeological study, but that’s just the surface-level stuff: if you’re a nerd for irrigation practices, religious taboos, and ancient tax policy, Wise-Woman’s Dog is a cornucopia of delights, and if you’re not, man, I’m sorry for you. It’s all delivered with a lightness of touch – at least so long as you don’t binge on the footnotes – with the world-building in service to the puzzles, but I found exploration a joy.

Speaking of those puzzles, they’re another highlight, both complicated and organically embedded into the world. See, you’re not just any dog, but the familiar of a village wise-woman who’s fallen afoul of a rival’s curse. To save her, you need to search out some new, powerful magic, which involves first helping the inhabitants of your city prepare their yearly tax payments, and then, once the raft to the provincial capital departs, gather treasures in the big city in order to amass enough money to purchase what you need. As a dog, your ability to directly intervene in human affairs is modest, but you have a secret weapon up your sleeve: as a “magic sponge”, you can absorb curses and blessings, and move them from one object to another. There are only a modest number of “spells” to find and use, but they’re versatile – one’s related to temperature, another makes things lighter, a third keeps things locked up tight – and it’s very satisfying to figure out how to use them to solve the various challenges thrown in your way.

The system here recalls similar frameworks like Hadean Land’s alchemy or Savoir Faire’s sympathetic magic; they’re satisfying not just because they’re complex, but because their consistent rules enable a player to deduce solutions rather than resorting to trial and error. And without spoiling things too much, things get even more engaging – albeit complicated – once you gain the ability to break some of the rules the first half of the game’s established. The flip side of all of this is that there definitely are some very challenging puzzles, even accounting for the various hints and playing aids, but happily you’re not forced to 100% everything if you don’t want to; in both of the game’s main sections, you can move on once you solve most of the puzzles rather than having to pursue all of them to the bitter end.

Speaking of the hints and playing aids, the game’s implementation also deserves some praise. Beyond taking advantage of Dialog’s ability to seamlessly mesh parser input and hyperlinks, Wise-Woman’s Dog has a built-in map, commands that will nudge you in the right direction by highlighting puzzles you’ve yet to solve, and a variety of shortcut actions that make the business of juggling spells (you can only carry one blessing and item at a time, since of course you’re a dog) and moving from one part of the reasonably-sized play area to another much less painful. This does mean that, combined with the rich location descriptions and active NPCs, there are a few places where the player can get overwhelmed with information, but I found it didn’t take too long to get up to speed, and the upsides of all this support are clear.

Taken together, it’s an impressive package: players who like history, deeply-worked-out magic systems, and deluxe parser-game experiences will all find a lot to enjoy – and if, like me, you check all three boxes and are a dog person to boot? That’s a blessing indeed.