The player takes on the role of a blacksmith named Ivan, who happened to get a curse of permanent bad luck, which had already claimed his arm. Worse, the Tzar had recently received a prophecy from the titular Baba Yaga that the one who is followed by bad luck will also eventually take his throne, yet that simply executing him would result in the downfall of the entire realm. Thus, the Tzar instead orders Ivan to fulfil a sequence of increasingly difficult and unlikely tasks that are invariably set in the distant and dangerous wildlands, hoping that Ivan eventually perish in the process.
Tropes present in this game:
- Ambiguous Time Period: At first glance the game appears to take place during the Christianization of the Slavs, which would place it no further than the 12th century. However a few characters smoke pipes and New World crops like pumpkins appear, which would indicate it takes place after 1500. These contradictions help give the game a timeless fairy tale feel.
- An Arm and a Leg: Ivan lost his arm when he encountered a witch named Likho in the forest, who was going to eat him. They fought, but she managed to shatter his hammer; he tried to flee, but saw a golden axe stuck in a tree and decided to stand his ground with it instead. However, it remained stuck, and so this only gave the witch time to cut his arm off outright, which she then ate while he was running away.
- Christianity is Catholic: Nicely subverted, the church and priest in the village appear to be Eastern Orthodox while another priest that appears in quests dresses like a Franciscan. this makes sense given that Slavs are split between Orthodox and Catholic ethnicities.
- Comically Missing the Point: During the prologue, when Likho says that Ivan arrived just it time to serve as her dinner, he gets three options that are summarized as simply "Your dinner?" (but with accent on a different word, or none at all), and the fourth that says now is merely lunchtime.
- Dialogue Tree: Ivan regularly gets to make conversational choices in this manner.
- Death of the Old Gods: Played with; there is a Christian church in the village and two Christian priest NPCs, but altars to pagan Slavic gods are found throughout the world and it's implied peasants in more rural areas still follow the old ways.
- Dual Wielding: Likho wields a rusty cleaver in one hand and a throwing dagger (or even a needle) in another.
- Some of the melee enemies dual-wield axes.
- Flash of Pain: Damaged enemies flash red.
- I Am a Humanitarian: Likho, the witch encountered in the prologue, intends to eat Ivan: they battle but she ultimately shatters his weapon, and gets to cut off and eat his arm while he was trying to get another one.
- Lady of War: Maria Morevna is a princess who leads her people to war.
- Luck Stat: Ivan is already very unlucky in-universe by default, so really bad luck for him outright physically manifests as a witch that randomly steals his items. Such bad luck can be incurred by making choices that conflict either with your role as a hero (i.e. plain evil or selfish) and/or contradict with your primary character trait. However, it is also possible to stumble upon certain encounters or even an outright boss fight that lower your luck on their own.
- Swamps Are Evil: In line with both the Slavic mythology and gaming traditions, swamps are the areas where you'll encounter some of the nastier monsters.
- The Three Trials: the game being based on fairytales this trope comes up a few times, for starters the Tzar gives Ivan three impossible tasks.
- The Weird Sisters: a Slavic variation of them appear as narrators and can occasionally be found on maps.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Ivan's hammer will reliably travel a certain distance and loop right back to his hand. It can also be modified with throwing-oriented upgrades, such as the ability to ricochet to the other enemies in the field.
- Uberwald: The setting is kept rather vague, but it is clearly in a Slavic region filled with supernatural entities.
- Videogame Cruelty Potential: Ivan gets a variety of choices throughout the game, and they certainly include the options to be more evil or unscrupulous than the usual fantasy character. For instance, he once comes across a sleeping peasant in the field, and has the option to wake him up and talk, walk away quietly, or use this time as the chance to steal from him. Choices like this, however, are also liable to inflict luck penalties upon him.
- Weapons of Their Trade: Being a blacksmith, Ivan obviously relies on his mighty hammer in combat. He can use his forging skills to improve it in a variety of ways as well, assuming he finds the right ores.
