Bramble: The Mountain King

In the Swedish developer Dimfrost Studio's second game, everything starts in a small bedroom in a house somewhere in Sweden. Olle wakes up to find that his older sister Lillemor is no longer in her bed. Apparently she has gone out into the forest and based on what little I know at the time, that doesn't seem like a great idea. Olle of course follows her out into the night as he loves his sister above all else and that's where the adventure, or rather the nightmare, begins. Olle soon finds Lillemor juggling on a cliff and this is where things start to go a little wrong for the siblings, after playing for a while they both fall down the cliff and slide straight into a fairytale land, with the huge disadvantage that they are not much bigger than a matchbox.

At first, however, it is quite difficult to take the warnings about the game containing blood and other nasty things seriously. Because it's so insanely cozy in the beginning, you can almost think you've been thrown straight into one of Elsa Beskow's fairy tales. It's hard to see how you can go from playing hide and seek with gnomes (who are so incredibly cute that I almost burst into tears) to pure horror. But soon enough, as night falls, all the less friendly creatures come out and the forest becomes a very dangerous place. We then go from happily skipping along among the pansies as the tones of Den Blomstertid Nu Kommer play in the background (which by the way is also used very effectively and scary in one of the darker parts of the game) to being chased by trolls, magical rats and other creatures and it is not long before Lillemor is kidnapped by a troll. Olle is then left alone and it is, to say the least, a real nightmare that awaits him now in the search for his missing sister. Not all creatures are evil, however, and there are some who help him along the way.

As I mentioned earlier, it's all set in Sweden and Dimfrost has thus drawn a lot of inspiration from Nordic mythology and its many not infrequently horrible fables. There are fairies, gnomes, giants and other creatures from Nordic folklore. There are also elements of Celtic and British mythology and maybe even a bunch of other influences that I personally don't recognize right away. This is especially noticeable in the title itself as Bramble means blackberry and while in the north they are not considered evil, it is another matter in Celtic mythology where it was considered that blackberries should not be eaten as the devil either spit or urinated on them. The blackberry bushes in Bramble are clearly evil and play a major role in the game, but I can't reveal much more than that without spoiling important parts of the story.

Bramble is really insanely gorgeous. I absolutely love my Swedish nature and Dimfrost Studio has really managed to recreate it in an absolutely magical way. It is truly delightful to stroll among white lilies and mushrooms on the paths in the forest, even if the knowledge that evil, evil and death can wait behind the next corner is constantly in the back of your mind. An open world of this caliber is a thought that makes me salivate, I dare say.

There are some moments where you have to fight for your survival, but for the most part it is Bramble's story in addition to the lovely aesthetics where it shines the most. Through books found here and there along the way, you also learn the story behind many of the creatures and mythical beings you encounter. Little by little, the story of who the Mountain King is and his tragic fate unfolds and it gets more and more gruesome. You don't get to see the Mountain King other than in the books, but his presence is constantly felt and you know that the final confrontation with him is getting closer all the time.

There are a few puzzles to solve as well, which can be an Achilles heel and source of frustration for me. Luckily for me, there aren't any particularly complex ones in Bramble, but I wouldn't have minded if the difficulty level of these had been a bit higher.

I wrote earlier that it was difficult to see how such a cozy fairy tale could turn into a lot of bloody violence, but it happens in the blink of an eye in principle. It also becomes really brutal, I have been split into small pieces with a meat axe, had my head bitten off in a pair of scissors and been impaled a number of times. There are even more ways to die than these three, you can be sure. There's a lot of blood spilled and it's up to Olle to make sure it's not his. Olle doesn't have too much in his arsenal either except for a small brightly shining stone which is more useful than it first appears. Luckily for Olle, the game is not full of enemies, it's mainly bosses you need to deal with that are all well designed and offer just the right amount of challenge. Among other things, an epic boss fight awaits against a certain female creature with a coarse back who had the habit of luring men into the forest and murdering them, but also the likes of Pesta and the infamous nudist Näcken appear and they are all up for a fight.

Of course, Bramble is not completely perfect. More than anything else, it is the camera that causes problems. It cannot be controlled by yourself at all, so it is impossible to set the exact angle, leaving you to use the predetermined one. Some jumps and so on become very difficult to time because you can't get a better angle. I also have the feeling that the angles chosen are quite strange many times, I absolutely like to think a little outside the box here but in many cases it becomes most annoying. Another thing is that it sometimes gets a little too dark and that makes it sometimes more difficult than it needs to be to see where to go next and then my problems with the camera also become even worse. It is of course possible to up the brightness before you start playing and even during the game if you wish, but if you set the strength after the recommendation, it still becomes frustratingly dark in some places and you die many times completely unnecessarily.

At its core, it's a powerful story of sibling love, but it's also much more than that, as you'll see if you play through it. I am touched and horrified at the same time, while at some points I wonder if this story will actually have a happy ending. It is sometimes so dark that I doubt it. Dimfrost Studio has managed the feat of making one of the coziest games I've ever played, only to completely change its character and become one of the most creepy I've ever experienced. It is so atmospheric and discomforting when it needs to be. I am very excited to see what Dimfrost will do in the future, if they continue like this they will have a very bright future.