- My name is Red Riding Hood. I have no father, no mother, no fear.
Woolfe - The Red Hood Diaries is a 3D Action-Adventure game by GriN. It was funded
on Kickstarter on August 31st, 2014, and the first volume of the game was released for PC through Steam on March 17th, 2015.
The story begins on the day Red Riding Hood returns to the city of Ulrica.
Four years ago today, Red's father, Joseph, died in a work accident. At least, that's the official story. The case was closed, and lips were sealed. Red, however, never bought it for a moment. She suspects foul play. Specifically, she suspects B. B. Woolfe, the CEO of Woolfe Industries, which her father worked for. Armed with an axe, she sets out to uncover the truth, and this pursuit occupies volume one of the tale.
While volume 2 was planned, and set up by the ending, GriN went bankrupt by August 2015 after 13 years in business, due to the poor sales and polarizing reception of the first volume. By October 2015, the IP was purchased by Rebellion (best known for the Sniper Elite series), but so far, their involvement had been limited to delivering the Kickstarter rewards GriN failed to deliver on, there is no word of a Volume 2, or some continuation, as of 2019.
Contrast with The Path and The Dark Side of Red Riding Hood, which also amount to a Darker and Edgier take on the same fairy tale, but amount to gameplay-light, narrative-focused experiences instead.
Woolfe - The Red Hood Diaries contains examples of:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: One of the levels is set in a sewer system inhabited by some enormous rats, and where Pied Piper also chose to make his base.
- Action Girl: Red, of course.
- Big Bad: B. B. Woolfe. It's even part of his initials.
- Big "NO!": One from Red makes up the final line of the game, as a huge black wolf, who may have been a reincarnated Woolfe, ambushes her at Grandma's bedsite.
- Bond One-Liner: Red is fond of dropping these, and they'll vary depending on the enemies she encounters as well. Against wolves, for instance, her taunts will range from vicious "You filthy cur!" to the mocking "Fetch!" and "Play dead."
- Charged Attack: Red can perform a heavy attack with her axe.
- Cliffhanger: The first volume ends with Red killing Woolfe, but then getting ambushed at her and Grandma's home by a literal black wolf, who is implied to be Woolfe's reincarnation. The game rolls the credits right as the wolf jumps and we only hear Red's shocked "Noooooo!"
- The Chosen One: Eventually, this is outright invoked by the volume one's ending, when Grandmother tells Red on her deathbed that only she can now liberate Ulrica, to which she replies "Am I some kind of a chosen one? Well, I didn't choose to be.", but her Grandmother dismisses the idea choice can overcome fate.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: B. B. Woolfe is the CEO of Woolfe Industries who keeps the city gripped in constant fear with his machine army.
- Damage-Sponge Boss: Woolfe is a physically a completely normal human who doesn't even wear any armor. Yet, he can tank a dozen axe blows from Red while standing perfectly still after spellcasting - at most, that'll just knock him into the next phase of his fight, where he'll do the same thing a few more times before finally going down.
- Damsel in Distress: Played with. Here, it's Red's grandmother who is kidnapped by B. B. Woolfe.
- Flunky Boss: Woolfe summons literal black wolves to assist him.
- Ground Pound: A magical attack unlocked by Red later on in the game. It's particularly useful for bringing down swarms of rats that can otherwise easily surround her.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: Inverted. Red always cuts down her enemies an axe, her Grandma at one point fights with a staff, while the Card-Carrying Villain B.B. Woolfe wields an elegant rapier (though for him, it's secondary to spell-casting.)
- In the Hood: Naturally, since the protagonist is Red Riding Hood.
- Insurmountable Waist-High Fence: The shift to 3D, combined with the budget and development time constraints, has resulted in a lot of seemingly short fences that will nevertheless completely block Red from jumping to where she isn't supposed to.
- Little Red Fighting Hood: Naturally. Red uses her axe to cut through both rats and machines, and the couple of human bosses.
- Mecha-Mooks: The streets are regularly patrolled by wind-up guards, who are otherwise equipped indistinguishably from gunpowder-era soldiers. Red later finds out they were created by her father, though Woolfe blackmailed him with her life to ensure cooperation.
- Not Quite Dead:Even though Red kills Woolfe at the conclusion of the first volume's final boss fight, the camera still focuses on his corpse for a long time after she walks away, yet it refuses to move. Afterwards, however, Granny reveals she put a spell on Woolfe that was a horrible mistake, and when Red dismisses this as raving, they both get ambushed by a literal huge black wolf. It's all but said outright that was Woolfe's reincarnation.
- Refusal of the Call: After Red carries out her revenge and kills Woolfe, her dying Grandmother says that she is now the only one who can liberate Ulrica. Red refuses, pointing out that Ulrica was never even her city.
- Savage Wolves: True to his name, Woolfe has an affinity with these. He'll start the game's final battle with several of them around, and keep summoning more at key points of the battle.
- Rodents of Unusual Size: The sewer is inhabited by rats the size of small dogs. That is before Red comes across rats that are straight-up larger than her and are somewhere between a rhino and an elephant in terms of stature.
- Spin Attack: Red eventually unlocks the ability to perform one.
- Unnecessary Combat Roll: Red can roll, but its timing and the relatively short distance travelled often makes it impractical compared to trying to dodge normally.
- Wolverine Claws: Eventually, Red is told by Grandma to channel her anger at Woolfe during the final confrontation with him, which results in her temporarily growing huge claws.
- You Can't Fight Fate: By the end, Grandma invokes this when Red initially refuses being tasked with liberating the entire Ulrica in the future volume, telling her that if choice was stronger than fate, her father would not have ended up where he did. They both get ambushed by a huge wolf (possibly reborn Woolfe) before Red gets to reply properly.
