“"Death is nothing more than the absence of love."”—Killmonday, 2015
| Fran Bow | |
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| Other names: | N/A |
| Developer(s): | Killmonday Games HB |
| Publisher(s): | Killmonday Games HB |
| Release Date(s): | August 27, 2015 |
| Designer(s): | Natalia Martinsson |
| Programmer(s): | Isak Martinsson |
| Writer(s): | Natalia Martinsson |
| Composer(s): | Isak Martinsson |
| Series: | Fran Bow |
| Engine: | Game Maker Studio |
| Platform(s): | Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS |
| Genre(s): | Point-and-click, Puzzle, Horror, Adventure |
| Mode(s): | Single-player |
Fran Bow is a point-and-click puzzle/horror/adventure game created and developed by Killmonday Games. It was crowd-funded through the Indiegogo platform reaching $28,295 from a goal of only $20,000. On August 27, 2015, three and half years after its development started, the game was officially released for Windows, Mac, and Linux on Steam, Gamejolt, Itch.io, IndieDB and Gog, and later made available for Android and iOS mobile devices. Fran Bow for mobile devices has been released in separate chapters due to storage limits.
Premise
From the official website:
"Fran Bow is a creepy adventure game that tells the story of Fran, a young girl struggling with a mental disorder and an unfair destiny.
"After witnessing the gruesome and mysterious loss of her parents, found dismembered at their home, Fran rushes into the woods, together with her only friend, Mr. Midnight, a black cat that Fran had previously received as a present from her parents.
"In the forest, Fran goes into shock over the loss of her parents and when she recovers, she’s at Oswald Asylum, an oppressive mental institution for children, and Mr. Midnight is nowhere to be found.
"After having a dream about her beloved cat, Fran decides to escape from the mental institution to find him and go back home to Aunt Grace, her only living relative."
Chapters
Fran Bow is divided into the following chapters:
- Chapter 1: My sober day
- Chapter 2, Part I: Curiosity Symptoms
- Chapter 2, Part II: Double personality
- Chapter 3: Vegetative state
- Chapter 4, Part I: My imaginary friend
- Chapter 4, Part II: Doctor's prescription
- Chapter 5: The house of madness
Gameplay
The game uses point-and-click style gameplay and features a variety of puzzles that must be solved in order to progress. To solve the puzzles, the player must examine objects and talk to non-player characters (NPCs) to discover clues, as well as collect and combine items to use in the puzzles. The central mechanic of the first two chapters, as well as the first part of chapter four, is the use of a drug known as Duotine to switch between the normal world and a gruesome, twisted version of it to find certain items and clues needed to progress. Duotine is temporarily replaced in the third chapter by a clock that can change the time to any of the four seasons, with each season acting as its own "world". Chapter 4, Part II and Chapter 5 do not have any such mechanics.
Gallery
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| The image gallery for Fran Bow (Game) may be viewed here. |