Woolfe: The Red Hood Diaries was made by GriN, although it’s not this Grin, it’s this one. According to a Kickstarted by the company founder, Wim Wouters, Woolfe was developed by a core group of just five developers over the course of eighteen or so months. It was Kickstarted successfully back in September, and as of this past week, it’s available on Steam for $10.
There are two key things to know about Woolfe – it’s a great game for $10, and it’s very short. Playing through on Normal difficulty I completed it in, according to Steam, 2.6 hours. Other than a few hiccups with invisible walls or collision detection, it was really fun. Along the way I snagged 11 of 20 Achievements and 28 of the 36 collectibles. Anyway, Woolfe smartly and mostly-successfully blends elements of American McGee’s original Alice, with a touch of Trine and Prince of Persia. The comparisons to Alice are readily apparent — a young girl is the protagonist and the story and setting is based on a renowned fairytale, with dark twists peppered in to make it more interesting to the average gamer. Indeed, players control the red-cape wearing Red Hood, who is out for vengeance and truth in discovering how, and why, her father died in Mr. Woolfe’s factory. Red’s dad was a toymaker, but his death was ruled an unfortunate accident, yet Red does not believe this. Orphaned at a very young age, she lives with her grandmother who trains her to be, a warrior who can wield an axe, cast a few magic spells, and nimbly maneuver through an environment (although she admits she cannot swim, so avoid the water).
I was surprised by how interesting the story actually was, and I liked that it was told with nicely done voiceovers. These voiceovers were presented as thoughts in Red’s mind that are triggered as you reach key areas, such as a familiar place that Red has memories from when she grew up, her father’s workplace, etc. Hidden collectibles, the rotating ‘W’ symbols, unlock Diary entries that provide concept art and additional information related to the story and the town it takes place in, Ulrica. During play-through, I did not stop to look at more than the first few of these, but you can check these out at anytime from the main menu, which also includes a nice-looking chapter select screen (allowing you to jump into any chapter you have unlocked) and of course, Options.
Within Options one can adjust the individual volumes of the different sound sources, including Master, Voice, Effects, Ambient, and Music. Regarding the music — I thought it was excellent. Red’s voice (and dialogue script for that matter) is also great, but the music was really about perfect for the setting. If you played the original Alice released in 2000, you may remember the eerie ‘fairytale music’ from that game, the same type of atmosphere-complimenting/building tunes play in Woolfe; loved it. Well, moving on now, here are the graphical options, and in parenthesis, what I used on my 4790k/970/16GB: Resolution (2560×1080, had to enable V-Sync to halt constant screen tear), Full Screen (On), V-Sync (On), Multi-Sample (16x), Texture Detail (16x), Shadow Quality (High), Dynamic Shadows (On), Shadow Resolution (Very High), Details (High), Ambient Occlusion (On). A few other miscellaneous tweaks include the ability to alter the size of the UI, the language, subtitles on/off, tooltips, and whether or not to enable Kickstarter backer names for the Guards you defeat (i.e., when you kill a guard, a name will pop up and those names are pooled from at least part of the 2,378 Kickstarter backers).
As for controls, I used a wired Xbox 360 controller, and other than some delay in bringing up the pause menu the few times I wanted to (it seemed like I had to press and hold Start for a couple of seconds — not a big deal, but unusual), control was smooth. Toggles are available for inverting the x and the y-axis for both the camera and in general, as well as toggling Vibration. Buttons include RT for Sprint, LT for sneak (or slide when already sprinting), Rolling (B), Heavy Attack (Y), Primary Attack (X), Jump/Double Jump (A), Magic (LB), and Interact (RB).
So to sum up, Woolfe’s pros outweigh its cons. I thought the story and characters were pretty cool, the graphics were nice, great audio (especially the music), and the gameplay was overall pretty good and satisfying, again with some bearing in mind of the price and given that GRiN is new. The combat is pretty satisfying and the platforming is good, although sometimes I thought the angles were just a smidge off making for some leaps into invisible walls (and subsequent deaths or re-tries). Overall, for $10, this is well worth checking out, with volume two due out in August.
