With Little Misfortune Killmonday Games rather created a spin off than an actual sequel to the brilliant Fran Bow. It's also good I didn't know about any connection before, because my expectations might have disturbed my reception.
If you played the predecessor, you will eventually recognize the obscure pagan mythology, although it's less obvious within the design of child book illustrations, receiving occasional sparkle from the young female protagonist named Misfortune Ramirez Hernandez.
The eight year old has a heartwarming naive temperament, formed by a background of domestic violence, alcoholism and drug abuse as we soon learn next to the information Misfortune is going to die on the present day. That's not a spoiler, it's something the invisible narrator tells us early on whilst Misfortune, who communicates with him as Mr. Voice, can't hear him for a minute.
The two are about to play a game that we seemingly can have an influence on by making decisions for the protagonist, who has an obsession for unicorns, glitter and the fox Benjamin she saw in the garden.
Sure, Fran Bow was sort of linear, too. But it played like a point'n'click adventure unlike Little Misfortune, that is better described as an interactive story book. It's much simpler picking path A or B on multiple obvious occasions rather than solving puzzles to proceed.
A few simple minigames to break the pattern are not really a challenge. If you play via mouse like me though, you might want to switch to keyboard for those events. It felt more natural.
That's actually the only real problem I have with Little Misfortune. It's just about two hours of watching a story with quite a few dilemmas if you care about the figure. But it's neither actual gameplay, nor is it very rewarding on a second playthrough.
There have been a couple of decisions I wanted to revisit and they usually somehow have an effect, but only few of them really make a difference to the action, yet they still seem to make the ending more or less unavoidable.
Other than that, well, Fran Bow was somberly twisted, you know, but even though a lot brighter on the surface, Little Misfortune is morbidly sinister in its own right. You might have to take my word for it as I don't want to reveal too much that is happening on this nondescript stroll.
You shouldn't be triggered by themes like described above, as a lot of the phrases leaving Misfortune's mouth so innocently actually reveal quite downbeat origins. The protagonist also has a tendency to throw up on occasion.
The strength of this program lies in emotions. It's very easy to care for Misfortune, who seems to be protected from her environment by playful resilience built from all the foxy imagination a cute little girl could come up with.
But how far is that going to take her? How much can we help and save her? It's probably as cynical as it sounds and so to perceive a layer of dark humor requires a specific mind set.
Following and interacting with the story might do something to you and I'm not even sure if there's a bigger effect depending on which side of town you grew up yourself. It doesn't matter what background Misfortune has and how unlucky she feels, she's not just junk.
She's a good kid inside, making the best of her situation that includes her mom would have aborted her if it had been legal. We're not used to fairytales being that depressing since Disney took over, but the storytelling is a quite true modernisation of the pristine tales once collected by brothers Grimm.
If you played the predecessor, you will eventually recognize the obscure pagan mythology, although it's less obvious within the design of child book illustrations, receiving occasional sparkle from the young female protagonist named Misfortune Ramirez Hernandez.
The eight year old has a heartwarming naive temperament, formed by a background of domestic violence, alcoholism and drug abuse as we soon learn next to the information Misfortune is going to die on the present day. That's not a spoiler, it's something the invisible narrator tells us early on whilst Misfortune, who communicates with him as Mr. Voice, can't hear him for a minute.
The two are about to play a game that we seemingly can have an influence on by making decisions for the protagonist, who has an obsession for unicorns, glitter and the fox Benjamin she saw in the garden.
Sure, Fran Bow was sort of linear, too. But it played like a point'n'click adventure unlike Little Misfortune, that is better described as an interactive story book. It's much simpler picking path A or B on multiple obvious occasions rather than solving puzzles to proceed.
A few simple minigames to break the pattern are not really a challenge. If you play via mouse like me though, you might want to switch to keyboard for those events. It felt more natural.
That's actually the only real problem I have with Little Misfortune. It's just about two hours of watching a story with quite a few dilemmas if you care about the figure. But it's neither actual gameplay, nor is it very rewarding on a second playthrough.
There have been a couple of decisions I wanted to revisit and they usually somehow have an effect, but only few of them really make a difference to the action, yet they still seem to make the ending more or less unavoidable.
Other than that, well, Fran Bow was somberly twisted, you know, but even though a lot brighter on the surface, Little Misfortune is morbidly sinister in its own right. You might have to take my word for it as I don't want to reveal too much that is happening on this nondescript stroll.
You shouldn't be triggered by themes like described above, as a lot of the phrases leaving Misfortune's mouth so innocently actually reveal quite downbeat origins. The protagonist also has a tendency to throw up on occasion.
The strength of this program lies in emotions. It's very easy to care for Misfortune, who seems to be protected from her environment by playful resilience built from all the foxy imagination a cute little girl could come up with.
But how far is that going to take her? How much can we help and save her? It's probably as cynical as it sounds and so to perceive a layer of dark humor requires a specific mind set.
Following and interacting with the story might do something to you and I'm not even sure if there's a bigger effect depending on which side of town you grew up yourself. It doesn't matter what background Misfortune has and how unlucky she feels, she's not just junk.
She's a good kid inside, making the best of her situation that includes her mom would have aborted her if it had been legal. We're not used to fairytales being that depressing since Disney took over, but the storytelling is a quite true modernisation of the pristine tales once collected by brothers Grimm.