DOG WITCH Review

DOG WITCH is a dice-based deckbuilding game developed by Heckmouse and published by Mystic Forge. Released on the 6th of November 2025, after a quick glance at it, I thought it would be a good time with its fun art style and music. Plus, I had to check if you could pet the dog (which you can change the look and name of).

There isn’t a tutorial, which can be a detriment to completely new players, but it was easy enough to figure out without one. The objective is simple: defeat the Mad Master Wizard. To actually face him, though, you’ll need to take care of all of his minions in the forest, desert, and mountains. From your typical goblins and living trees to… evil milk vending machines and matryoshka dolls with guns hidden in them. Yeah, it gets weird with the enemy types and they’re pretty tough if you don’t know how to deal with their various gimmicks.

In order to fight this cast of weirdos, you have to rely on dice to get a random selection of spells, charms, and curses to help defeat your enemies. Each face of a die corresponds with a different type of spell or equipment which each have their own mechanic. You can use whatever you roll and you can re-roll twice before you have to stick with what you got. 

NOT THE BEE-G

However, with your basic spells, you won’t go very far, but that’s why you can always improve your arsenal of magic. After every fight, you can choose an upgrade for your dice or gain equipment to get a passive buff, which can be improved via their Corrupted versions. There’s one for each upgrade, but you have to take damage in order to add it to your arsenal, and HP can be difficult to regain outside of beating a boss. It’s an interesting choice, as you’ll typically need to go into the next area not fully healed, and small numbers can lead to huge payoffs either to your favour or detriment.

Because of how things are set up, you’ll always have something you can do every turn, but you can’t manipulate the RNG in any way outside of a few specific items, and they can be both rare or screw up your strategy. However, since you can choose to cast whatever you rolled, I didn’t feel as though I was totally screwed whenever I got a bad roll. Runs can be determined by luck, but your build and strategy do matter when it counts.

This desert ain't big enough for the both of us.

Here’s the thing, though: so far I’ve been describing how a Classic hat run goes, because there are so many more unlockable ways to play; have only Corrupted items, go through a boss rush, Endless mode, start with all your favourite items, and more. Heck, stack all those hats together and create an amalgamation of different modes to make your run as easy, as hard, or as stupid as possible. It’s honestly something you should try, as it makes the gameplay a whole lot different from a standard attempt.

Choose your fate.

But with all that being said, I did have a few issues. Despite saying it had 150 unique items, I felt that there weren’t that many to get. I had discovered most of them after only a few runs, which felt weird. You are encouraged to try ones you haven’t used before, and Corrupted variants technically double that number, but once I found a good setup, it’s not that hard to get what you want, especially since once you take an upgrade, it’s there for the run: no replacing them and there’s no skip/re-roll button. Also, a warning to all arachnophobes, as spiders can be used as summons and there’s no way to make them less… spider-y. But other than that, it ran perfectly well at 60 FPS on the highest settings and I encountered no glitches and everyone loaded almost instantly.

I liked my time with DOG WITCH. It’s a fun roguelike that makes every attempt an enjoyable one. A run will only take around 20–30 minutes to beat, so it's great for a quick break. It might rely a little too heavily on luck, but if you want a slightly cosy adventure to slay a dark wizard, this game is for you!

And yes, you can pet the dog.