Fran Bow 4: Further into Wonderland

Well this game just gets weirder and weirder. The Alice in Wonderland theme continues. I managed to get defeat the evil twins and--ta da!--I have rescued Mr. Midnight! Yes, Fran and her beloved kitty are reunited! Hooray!

Of course, they had adventures and I was able to find the correct spell to get me out of the clutches of the evil twins. Every now and then this game throws in a different kind of little game. We had Pac-Man earlier. Then a game of "Froggy," which I couldn't do, never having had any experience with it. But the game lets you skip those if necessary. Good.

To get the key to free Mr. Midnight I had to solve a slider game that hooked up gears. I just referred to CJU's video for that, but still had to manipulate it until I got it. But it was a good puzzle.

However, in making our escape, Mr. Midnight and Fran find themselves in a completely different world. In a cut scene we get an image of Fran's doctor giving her new pills. I rather suspect that this extremely pleasant cartoon world is the result of those pills.

But now we're in this most pleasant land, trying to find a way back home. The imagination continues to spiral out of control in this game, but it certainly entertains! This happy place is serving as quite a relief from the serious darkness of the rest of the game. Plus, I have a book in my inventory now that actually gives a few answers about what might be going on.

I'm now at the stage where I need to solve some riddles. I think I have the answer to at least two of them. 

I've done enough for today, though. So, until next time!

Next Entry.

Fran Bow 3: Down the Rabbit Hole

So I'm doing something now that I've never done before. I've been watching lets'play videos from CJU, and he did Fran Bow several years ago. This game is so weird that I've been running the video on my Roku YouTube app on the TV while playing the game. I'm staying a bit ahead of the video because I really don't want spoilers, but when I get seriously stuck I'm just going to the video instead of a WT. So far I'm doing a good 95% of the game by myself, and getting CJU's impressions is really fun. So this is kind of a nice strategy for me.

As CJU says, this game is really beginning to have an Alice in Wonderland vibe. It is very, very, very dark. The horror is actually horrible. We don't know if this is fantasy or is all in Fran Bow's mind. She's clearly a disturbed little girl, but I rather doubt that she slaughtered her parents. I doubt that a 10-year old girl could have pulled off that feat.

Well, I've finally reached the point where she finds her missing cat, Mr. Midnight. He's locked up, however, and Fran has to deal with some rather odd sisters to try to get him back. Getting to that point, we got out of the Asylum (end of Chapter 1), and through the maze and the forest. It turned out that I didn't miss anything by not conquering the maze, but it would have been nice to have won that puzzle anyway.

The imagination in this game is off the charts. Again, although I can't take screenshots and I'm sorry for that, far too many of those shots would be spoilers. But I'd love to show the stellar creativity of this game! 

In the forest, Fran Bow had to deal with strange heads with long hair tangled in a tree, she had to try to save Mr. Midnight by killing an odd pig, she dealt with a pinecone family and a rat. Now she's literally down at the bottom of a well (oh dear--that thought makes me worry about the actual fate of Mr. Midnight).

At the bottom of the well we're in the sister's cozy little home, full of witchy things and Fran will seek the ingredients she needs for a spell. I've got one of the ingredients, but I stopped there. I'm actually still a bit ahead of CJU. Will get back to the game fairly soon. I want to finish this before Blackenrock is released, and I think (hope) that long-awaited event will occur in the next week or so.

This really is a fantastic game. If you can stand the darkness of Fran's world, or of her mind, as the case may be, the creativity is just amazing. And all done with a simplistic art style.

Wonderful. And disturbing. Onward!

Next entry.

Fran Bow 2: Ever More Disturbing

I have been gone for far too long, but it wasn't because of the game. Had hip replacement surgery and all that led up to it and after it, so I've mainly been watching game videos instead of playing. But I'm pretty sure that the sequel to The Lost Crown, Blackenrock, is coming out very soon, so I want to finish this little gem.

And a little gem it is. Deceptively simple. Deeply disturbing. The Asylum is bad enough, back in the 1940s. But the visions Fran Bow has when she takes her pills--which appear to be some kind of experiment that they're doing on her, are even worse. She sees constant visions of gore and monsters. Once you find the operating room and the cells next to it, however, the asylum is nearly as bad.

As to gameplay, yeah, it's pretty simple. If you click on everything, both in hyperpill mode and out, you will find the solutions. The puzzles are inventory based, so if you find the inventory, examine things and combine them eventually you'll hit on the solution. (That, of course, didn't stop me from looking up the password solution. I am bad at math and I don't enjoy it. Look it up in the WT.)

Well I have at last made it out of the asylum. There was a very nifty maze puzzle that really was a game of Pacman. You can follow your mechanical kitty who, presumably, will show you the way out, but you have to avoid ghosts that will eat you if they catch you. I would have happily stuck with it but I wanted to save, so I clicked the upper right-hand arrows on the screen and alas, that turned out to be the way to bypass the puzzle. Plus, I can't go back because the game saves automatically from wherever you left off. No named saved games. Drat.

Anyway, I am out of the asylum and just beginning Chapter 2. I think I'll save that for next time.

A problem. For whatever reason, I cannot take screenshots on this Steam game. The shots I took in the previous entry I got from a YouTube video. Anyway, half of the inventiveness of this game is in the artwork, so I'd rather not spoil it! Ergo, no more screenshots from now on!

Till later!

Next Entry.