Review: The Witch's Apprentice

(Very funny and all, but what I want to know is: [gratuitous Monty Python reference follows] Does she weigh more than a duck? . The Witch’s Apprentice - Details (ifdb.org))

Nosewarts & Broomsticks

The Witch’s Apprentice is a short, easy and humorous bite-sized little parser game.
(Caution: “bite-sized” should not lure the player into tasting any of the substances mentioned. Doing so may result in bodily deformities, demonic possession, boiling of bodily fluids, spontaneous combustion, excrutiatingly painful bowel movements, burnt-out eyeballs, death and/or hiccups.) (EDIT: This caution is directed at the player as a “do not try this at home”-warning. The PC can try eating or drinkind anything without ill effects. The game is very kid-friendly. @Warrigal below: there, fixed it.)

As the new apprentice, the boss witch sends you out to get groceries. Ahem, ingredients for her witch’s brew. There’s a handy list of things you should gather in and around the house.

Although the map is fairly small, there is a nice variety of locations. The house itself is mostly surprisingly homey, albeit rather empty and with a scary surprise here and there. In contrast, the outdoors have a scary-yet-endearing horror B-movie feel to them.

Most of the obstacles are simple search-and-fetch tasks, with a few slightly more complicated two-or-three step puzzles.
The most challenging (and fun) part of The Witch’s Apprentice is the amount of funny and distracting red herrings sprinkled all over the map. They all fit well with the puzzles, so they feel like they could be part of a solution. It was hilarious at times to experience how determined a seasoned adventurer’s mind is to come up with the most complicated and convoluted answers to simple problems.

A charming short and easy puzzler.

8 Likes

Don’t believe anything @rovarsson says. There are no burst brains or spilled entrails. In fact, I think it’s safe for kiddies to play.

This was my second Adventuron game and still one of my favourites. It was the winner of the Adventuron Halloween Jam 2019 and heralded for the charming cartoon-style graphics.

The original inspiration for the game was the witches’ chant in the opening scene of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. You know the one, “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble” and all that stuff.

The game is set on Halloween. You play the part of a young girl named Susan, who has just finished her training at the Spooksville Academy of Witchcraft and is about to start her apprenticeship with Broomhilda the witch. Once you get into the mansion and meet Broomhilda, she gives you a list of ingredients that she needs to make a brew to keep the dead spirits at bay. The list is a rhyme and every time you give an ingredient to Broomhilda, she stirs it into the brew accompanied by a rhyming chant.

I really had a lot of fun writing this game and it still gives me a smile. I hope it gives you a smile, too.

Thanks for the review.

2 Likes

I was talking about the player.

1 Like

Oh. You never can tell with your reviews. And here was me planning a sequel with bodily deformities, demonic possession, boiling of bodily fluids, spontaneous combustion, excrutiatingly painful bowel movements, burnt-out eyeballs, death and/or hiccups.

2 Likes

Please do.
You could make it an optimisation game where the PC needs to get all these symptoms in order to win.

About the red herrings:
Throughout history, countless people will have chased a rat through the kitchen with a broom. Or a cricket bat. But how many have tried catching that rat by throwing a hairnet over it and then jumping it to bash its brains in with a little gardener’s hand spade?
Because I have.

2 Likes