Wolf eats granny, Wolf cross-dresses as granny. Wolf tries to eat Red Riding Hood, hunter has to chop wolf to itty bitty fleshy pieces. That’s how most of us know the story of Little Red Riding Hood anyway, the tale of a sweet young girl in a crimson coat who tried to bring her grandmother some biscuits but nearly gets murdered 5 times on the way. How darling. Woolfe: The Red Hood Diaries is equally as gritty as this time ‘Red’, as she’s known in the game, is forced to seek revenge and answers after her dad is killed in a work place ‘accident’. The air quotes are all mine of course but Red is also convinced that her father’s shady employee B.B Woolfe, CEO of Woolfe Industries is involved in a cover up. With a name like that and a monstrous, clockwork army there’s no way B.B Woolfe is anything other than nefarious, really. Read more on Woolfe after the break.

Woolfe Gamescom Trailer via Woolfe on YouTube

How Woolfe’s Gameplay Will Ruin Your Childhood

As put so well by the fellow in the above featurette, Woolfe is ‘a 2D-game that requires three dimensional’ thinking. Battles aren’t endless side-scrolling slogs and puzzles aren’t your usual ‘push box next to platform to jump a little higher’ affairs. Some strategice thinking will be observed whether Red is running for her life with the Tin Soldiers on her tail or traversing levels which developer GriN say are inspired by the works of Tim Burton and Prince of Persia (in its better years, we’d hope).

Meanwhile, while there’ll be childhood ruining boss battles galore as notorious leader of rodents, The Pied Piper will be featured, as will Pinocchio. GriN say that rather than the wooden boy wonder form of Pinocchio we’re treated to in Shrek et. al, we’ll be getting the ‘classic’ version of him from the original story where he was accused of murdering both of his parents and was then hung for his crimes. Like I said, Woolfe is gritty.

Woolfe: The Kickstarter Diaries

When I spoke to Woolfe’s creative director Wim Wouters all the way back in December, in the first ever interview about the game he explained to me that a) the game is incredibly ambitious and b) episodic chunks of Woolfe would allow them to get the entirety of it funded. Alas, episodic plans have been thrown out of the window and their Kickstarter is now live and going well as GriN look to fulfill the original promise of the game (which already has a playable alpha) and add in features like “superhuman skills” for Red and a “mystical shadow wolf” which would certainly change up the gameplay quite a bit. Woolfe’s voice acting is also a bit wonky and has been in all of the videos I’ve seen of it, but there’s no word on whether the crowdfunding could help with that.

Woolfe is looking for $50,000 and all of that planning gubbins such as how the money will be spent is listed, and at all tiers (the options start at $10) you’ll bag yourself a copy of the game. Thankfully, while all of that ‘hey! Get your name written in the credits despite having no discernible input in the game’s development’ sort of thing is available as a backer reward, you can actually influence Woolfe’s difficulty by customising your own toy soldier and its individual stats, thus making the game’s enemies more of a toothache to fight against.

That’s a pleasant feature for those looking forward to the game but we should all probably have a lot of confidence in this one as not only did it pass through Stream Greenlight in just five days, it was also picked to feature in the Xbox’s press conference at Gamescom, which is a Very Big Deal. The official press release says Woolfe will also be coming to PC and PS4 though, so stay tuned for more on that.

Woolfe: The Red Hood Diaries will be released in 2015 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.