Wildflower Interactive describes Coven of the Chicken Foot as a single-player character puzzle-platformer starring an elderly witch named Gertie. She is not built around sword fights, acrobatics, or clearing rooms of enemies. Her progress depends on learning how to work with a strange creature that has its own behavior and motives.
The game takes place after traditional fantasy heroes have already looted dungeons, killed monsters, and moved on. Gertie belongs to a coven that opposes the damage left behind by those celebrated adventurers, so familiar heroic scenery is presented from the people cleaning up afterward. Forests, ruined dungeons, catacombs, caves, and deadly bogs become spaces for observation and cooperation rather than another combat tour.
Seen beside Bruce Straley’s criticism of familiar AAA design, the contrast is unusually concrete. His new project is not simply smaller in budget. Wildflower is building its story around systems that can produce character moments during play instead of reserving most of the relationship for cutscenes.
His reference point was Ellie from The Last of Us. Ellie could react dynamically during combat, yet many of her greatest emotional changes still arrived through authored scenes and fixed sequences. Coven of the Chicken Foot pushes further by trying to make the companion’s moment-to-moment behavior carry more of the relationship while the player is actively navigating the world.
Wildflower prototyped the idea before expanding production, and Straley has described the technology behind the companion as complicated despite the studio’s modest size. The goal is not a giant simulation where anything can happen. It is a controlled system with enough responsiveness to let the creature notice context, develop behaviors, and surprise the player without losing its identity.
Wildflower has also accepted a problem many games try hard to hide. An autonomous companion can make mistakes. Instead of promising flawless behavior, the team shaped the creature’s personality and backstory so some errors can read as curiosity or character rather than a broken script.
The approach places Coven inside the broader design problem covered by adaptive companion design in games, where companion behavior can respond to changing player or gameplay context. Wildflower’s version is more specific than a generic adaptive NPC. The creature is supposed to have enough independence that learning how it behaves becomes part of solving the game.
Straley has described its curiosity in childlike terms, which matters because unpredictability becomes something you investigate. A failed interaction might tell you what the creature notices, fears, prefers, or misunderstands. Success is therefore not limited to finding the one command the designer expected you to enter.
The choice also changes puzzle design. Gertie cannot simply instruct the creature with a spoken solution, and the creature is not advertised as a remote-controlled extension of her abilities. Progress depends on reading its behavior, working out what it understands, and adapting when its response differs from what you expected.
The semi-open structure gives those systems room to breathe. Wildflower says curiosity is rewarded, with environmental storytelling carrying much of the worldbuilding as the pair travel through spaces abandoned or damaged by conventional heroes. Exploration can therefore feed the relationship at the same time as it reveals what happened to the world.
Influences such as Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are visible in the emphasis on companionship without constant dialogue, but Straley is not simply rebuilding either game. The more revealing connection is his own history with Ellie. Coven takes the old ambition of making a companion feel present during play and makes that problem the center of the entire adventure.
Wildflower has not announced a release date. The Steam listing currently names PC as the confirmed platform and still marks launch timing as to be announced. Console versions have not been confirmed, so claims of PlayStation or Xbox versions currently go beyond what the studio has announced.
The game takes place after traditional fantasy heroes have already looted dungeons, killed monsters, and moved on. Gertie belongs to a coven that opposes the damage left behind by those celebrated adventurers, so familiar heroic scenery is presented from the people cleaning up afterward. Forests, ruined dungeons, catacombs, caves, and deadly bogs become spaces for observation and cooperation rather than another combat tour.
Seen beside Bruce Straley’s criticism of familiar AAA design, the contrast is unusually concrete. His new project is not simply smaller in budget. Wildflower is building its story around systems that can produce character moments during play instead of reserving most of the relationship for cutscenes.
The idea predates Wildflower by decades
Straley has said the basic idea reaches back to the period when Naughty Dog was starting Jak and Daxter. He had sketches from the concept years before founding Wildflower Interactive in 2022, and returned to it because he still wanted to test a particular design problem. Could a game make a relationship feel authored without scripting every important emotional beat?His reference point was Ellie from The Last of Us. Ellie could react dynamically during combat, yet many of her greatest emotional changes still arrived through authored scenes and fixed sequences. Coven of the Chicken Foot pushes further by trying to make the companion’s moment-to-moment behavior carry more of the relationship while the player is actively navigating the world.
Wildflower prototyped the idea before expanding production, and Straley has described the technology behind the companion as complicated despite the studio’s modest size. The goal is not a giant simulation where anything can happen. It is a controlled system with enough responsiveness to let the creature notice context, develop behaviors, and surprise the player without losing its identity.
The creature is allowed to get things wrong
Gertie’s companion is intentionally autonomous. It can observe situations, learn from its witch partner, develop new behaviors, and reveal interests that do not always line up neatly with what the player wants. You are meant to work with it rather than issue perfect commands to an obedient puzzle tool.Wildflower has also accepted a problem many games try hard to hide. An autonomous companion can make mistakes. Instead of promising flawless behavior, the team shaped the creature’s personality and backstory so some errors can read as curiosity or character rather than a broken script.
The approach places Coven inside the broader design problem covered by adaptive companion design in games, where companion behavior can respond to changing player or gameplay context. Wildflower’s version is more specific than a generic adaptive NPC. The creature is supposed to have enough independence that learning how it behaves becomes part of solving the game.
Straley has described its curiosity in childlike terms, which matters because unpredictability becomes something you investigate. A failed interaction might tell you what the creature notices, fears, prefers, or misunderstands. Success is therefore not limited to finding the one command the designer expected you to enter.
Wordless play carries the relationship
Gertie and the creature do not share a common language. Wildflower is using that limitation deliberately, pushing communication into movement, reactions, environmental cues, and repeated interactions. The player has to infer intentions instead of waiting for one character to explain the other in dialogue.The choice also changes puzzle design. Gertie cannot simply instruct the creature with a spoken solution, and the creature is not advertised as a remote-controlled extension of her abilities. Progress depends on reading its behavior, working out what it understands, and adapting when its response differs from what you expected.
The semi-open structure gives those systems room to breathe. Wildflower says curiosity is rewarded, with environmental storytelling carrying much of the worldbuilding as the pair travel through spaces abandoned or damaged by conventional heroes. Exploration can therefore feed the relationship at the same time as it reveals what happened to the world.
Influences such as Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are visible in the emphasis on companionship without constant dialogue, but Straley is not simply rebuilding either game. The more revealing connection is his own history with Ellie. Coven takes the old ambition of making a companion feel present during play and makes that problem the center of the entire adventure.
Wildflower has not announced a release date. The Steam listing currently names PC as the confirmed platform and still marks launch timing as to be announced. Console versions have not been confirmed, so claims of PlayStation or Xbox versions currently go beyond what the studio has announced.
