Review: Fran Bow

WARNING: This review covers a game that deals with mental health and gore… a lot of gore. Proceed at your own discretion.

I am not a huge fan of horror games. I enjoy watching people play them, but it is a challenge for me to play without forcing someone to be in the room with me. This was not the case with Fran Bow. This game sticks out from the rest by putting control in the player’s hands: swapping between the normal and horror worlds of the game is a primary mechanic. This also means that the player only has to see as much of the horror world as they can handle. The game does really well with developing the world and foreshadowing the events of later chapters. The best case is with Itward, a character whose presence is constantly hinted at until the chapter he is formally introduced in.

Fran Bow was released in 2015 by Killmonday Games, comprised of Natalia and Isak Martinsson. It was the first game of theirs to be published to steam. The game’s story follows the titular Fran Bow as she tries to find her cat and return to a normal way of life. She does this by taking a drug called Duotine, which allows her to see the ultrareality. This might be confusing, but I’m trying to avoid a lot of spoilers.

What always enticed me was that there are two ways of interpreting Fran’s story. The first way is to take everything at face value and assume it is all real; Fran’s journey takes place across multiple dimensions with a unique cast of characters. The second option is that Fran is hallucinating. The game has enough evidence to back both sides up, which leaves it up to the viewer’s interpretation. There are a range of puzzles with varying levels of difficulty, and there are even minigames between chapters that have a beautiful mix of mediums.

I did find an issue while replaying the game. There is a lot of dialogue. While this did not upset me the first time I played, it makes repeat playthroughs annoying. A simple change would be to allow a faster way to go through dialogue. I do know people have complained about the current inventory system, but I did not have a huge issue with it. I do know that an update for this system is currently in the works.

All in all, Fran Bow does an amazing job of providing multidimensional puzzles with a good sense of challenge throughout five chapters. Each chapter provides a new setting with weird and wonderful characters to enjoy. While the graphic scenes and use of suicide, abuse, and other types of trauma makes it hard to recommend this game to everyone, anyone who is willing to suck it up will find a lovely experience that cannot be beat.

Fran bow is available on steam, with ports arriving to mobile, Nintendo switch, and other platforms. Get the game here.