Fran Bow Review
Played on PC
Developed by Killmonday Games
Released 27th August 2015
A psychological horror; in-depth ambiguity and thought-provoking puzzles were combined here to create this satisfactory, indie point'n'click. All it took: the brilliant minds of two brilliant people.
Story
The story of Fran Bow follows a 10-year-old girl named Fran Bow (what a crazy coincidence), who, after witnessing the brutal murder of her parents, is transported to a Mental Institute where she has only two goals in mind: to find her pet cat Mr Midnight and to figure out the identity of her parent's killer. The narrative is chock-full of thematic imagery of the supernatural, insanity, horror, family, and more, and they all interact with each other seamlessly as the player tries to piece together the truly mysterious nature of the game. Nothing is absolute in this and that missing puzzle piece is what makes the ambiguous ending work so well - we may be left to an enigmatic plot point, but it's decipherable; something that many games don't seem to get right. It is riddled with narrative clues, and the ones you'll find in your playthrough will make or break your own theories. The pacing became a little off at one point, shifting from atmospheric horror to a light-hearted adventure, however, that shift was semi-functional as it served as a hiatus from the constant terror.
Gameplay
The gameplay consists of a simple point'n'click adventure, as you explore the in-depth stories of every item, character and location, and a puzzle system that feels like a well-made riddle. The game also likes to play with a world-shifting perspective, as you could vary the way the world looked to you via things like Duotine, the brain-stimulating pills Fran Bow uses. The positives of this are the personal world-building every player gets since almost everything you interact with has a story behind it. Additionally, the puzzles are incredible. They're not the unfair, walkthrough-needed puzzles of Grim Fandango, but they're not rudimentary and simplistic like in God of War. Instead, they strike a perfect balance between strangeness and creativity but also logic and challenge. However, some flaws do rise to the surface. The dialogue that is used to approach world-building is a frustrating facade. For all the interactions you share with other characters, the game illustrates itself as a choice-based game given that you could alter your word choices. Yet this didn't do anything, because as far as I am aware, it didn't even change the dialogue of the person you were speaking with. Therefore this did absolutely nothing for me and felt extremely useless. Another problem that I had could easily be blamed on my low IQ, but certain puzzles did stretch over into the region of extreme difficulty and forced me to search for a walkthrough online.
Characters
While normally I would also rate the characters of a game, especially one of this structure, I'm going to refrain from doing so as the game's cryptic nature and how I perceived the characters will be different from how others will interact with them, and I don't want to give a false portrayal of these characters to anyone. For example, while I perceived Dr Deern as a bitter old man, others may see him as a kind guy who put himself forward as a guardian more so than I did. Long story short, scoring the characters is hard for this game.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere is brilliant. Although Fran Bow does not boast the most memorable pieces of music I've heard from a videogame, it definitely is still breathtaking. The melodic tunes that comprise an hour's worth of music fit within the "false/truth" theme of the game. It's calming and peaceful, while also being haunting and creepy. It's a deceptive soundtrack that fits with the deceptive narrative. The visuals perform a similar task. It's all so designed to be welcoming like a children's book but can easily turn into nightmare fuel with its rapid switches between realities and unsettling details. The music, the artwork, and more amplify this game's qualities by a stupendous amount. Fran Bow is normally not even terrifying, but these subtle additions made some of the small, quick pop-ups as equally frightening as large-scale jump scares in traditional horror games.
Story- 7.5/10
Gameplay- 6.5/10
Atmosphere- 8.5/10
Good
A good piece of horror medium that balances mystery in a way that many games have sought after.
