Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood

Really cute game that you can play in your free time, on Mac, and literally on autopilot! The game really doesn't ask much from you, as there's literally one combat mechanic to learn and even that is autopilot. One thing I do have to say is some of the puzzles can be unnecessarily hard or time consuming to complete. I spent a few hours going in circles in the catacombs with zero instructions from the game on what to do to get out of this. It's a good thing that there's just enough tutorials online to not call this game too niche lmao. It gets you thinking a little bit.

Cute narrative puzzle game inspired by The Wizard of Oz

Cute puzzler. The clues are there and logical. Nothing moon-logicy. Graphics are good and controls aren't bad. One annoyance is that you if you finish the main thing in an area, the area ends and you can't find the other things there.

I wobbled back and forth on this one, but ultimately? It's an old-timey adventure game, and we always need more of those. This one's different to, say, a SCUMMVM game, where the strengths are usually the voice acting and puzzle design. Here the strengths are the art and the music. The puzzles aren't quite "moon logic" but there were a couple points where I had to look up the solutions, and the gameplay is interspersed with characters hunting or fighting you. I didn't like this system AT ALL, but it's really easy so I'm neutral towards it. The game's runtime isn't "short" exactly, but it feels a bit like it's padded by the multiple endings and collectible items. Since it's full of puzzles, you wouldn't really want to replay it, but even on a single play through it's decently long. So in the end, it's a pretty good adventure game that's playable with a controller. You already know if it's worth $15 to you.

The puzzles have hints that are seen on the walls. Unfortunately for puzzles 2 onwards the hints make no sense when compared to the solution. The 3rd puzzle I could not get anywhere with as its timed and you have 4 seconds to work out what to do. I got nowhere and rather than waste more of my timing seeing how others had done it on the internet I gave up. The puzzles are infuriating and don't seem to match the hints.

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood is a story-driven adventure that leans heavily into fairy-tale imagery while experimenting with time loops, branching narratives, and puzzle-focused progression. Developed by Devespresso Games and published by Headup, the game places players in the role of Scarlet, a young woman whose life has already taken a rough turn before she is quite literally swept away into a strange magical world. After being caught in a tornado, Scarlet awakens in the land of Glome, where familiar storybook logic collides with looming danger, and her only hope of survival lies in guiding a group of fragile Munchkins through the ominous Wicked Wood. The narrative immediately distinguishes itself through its looping structure. Scarlet is forced to relive the same day repeatedly, with each failure resetting the timeline while preserving the player’s knowledge. This mechanic transforms the story into an exercise in trial, error, and gradual mastery, encouraging players to experiment with different decisions and paths. Conversations, choices, and puzzle solutions can lead to dramatically different outcomes, and understanding how the world reacts to Scarlet’s actions becomes ju…