In Edna, you play as a hunchbacked, hook-nosed old witch seeking revenge on the king who cast her out for trying to read his newborn daughter's fate.
Trade feather dusters instead of slinging fireballs
Most action platformers from 1997 handed you a broadsword or a rocket launcher and set you loose on endless hordes. This 1997 game takes a completely different path: Edna prefers bartering, potion brewing, and smart inventory management over standard hack-and-slash combat.
You wander through roughly one hundred distinct screen views spanning dark forests, murky swamps, and rigid castle halls. Instead of double-jumping over lava pits, your progression hinges on finding the right item for the right character. You might fetch a duster for a castle servant, carry a pot of water to a thirsty traveller, or deliver a sealed letter to open up a locked doorway.
That heavy reliance on trading items gives the game the rhythm of a classic point-and-click adventure tucked inside a side-scrolling frame. If you enter a screen expecting pure reflex tests, you will quickly find yourself running back and forth searching for whatever trinket an NPC requested.
Rhymes, potion pots, and a hundred static screens
Dialogue forms the backbone of your quest, written in Czech rhyming verse for every single interaction. You talk with castle cooks like Matthew, haggle with goblins in the woods, and consult forest animals to figure out your next destination. Learning and casting spells or concocting new brews in your pot gives you access to areas that outright physical strength could never open.
The pacing is deliberately slow, which was a risky design choice for a 2D side-scrolling title back then. When you run into a dead end, there are no hint buttons or quest logs to guide you back on track. You simply have to retrace your steps across dozens of screens, trying every item in your inventory against every creature you meet.
That fetch-quest loop is where the game will test your patience. Missing a small glass of water or an easily overlooked object tucked into a background detail means wandering through previously cleared zones until you notice what you skipped.
A gorgeous cover with a bleak studio story behind it
The development behind the game carries a bittersweet place in Czech gaming history. It was created by the team at Black Raven and distributed by Signum. Czech artist Roman Hladík painted the impressive box art for the release, years before he went on to help shape the visuals of the famous Mafia series at Illusion Softworks.
Sadly, the commercial side of the release ended in disaster. The publisher reportedly never paid Black Raven for their hard work on the project. Because of that financial hit, the studio collapsed and never released another title, leaving this single release as their sole entry in the DOS archive.
Despite the production troubles, the team delivered a technically solid package for PC sound cards. The retail CD featured native CD audio tracks that provided rich ambient music while you explored the kingdom, adding atmosphere that simple FM synthesis could not match.
Revisiting the old witch today
As a pure action game, it lacks the tight jumping mechanics or fast-paced combat of its contemporaries. However, as an item-swapping adventure wrapped in fairytales, it has a distinct charm that rewards slow, thoughtful exploration. The original language barrier kept it hidden from most global players for decades, though fan translation efforts have finally made its rhyming conversations accessible to wider audiences.
If you enjoy classic inventory puzzles and do not mind frequent backtrack runs across static screens, this DOS journey works well. It trades twitch reflexes for straightforward puzzle logic, making it a good choice for an evening with an old adventure game.
You can play Edna free in your browser right here with zero hassle. The entire Edna MS-DOS game runs directly in your web browser with no setup required, so you can start trading items and brewing potions immediately. Launch it above, keep an eye out for hidden items in the background graphics, and see if you can guide the outcast witch to her final revenge.