My Brother Rabbit (2018)

My Brother Rabbit is point-and-click search and puzzle game released by Polish game developer Artifex Mundi for a variety of platforms and consoles.  It is set in a surreal and beautifully drawn world that explores how a young child uses imagination to cope with an uncertain and frightening situation.

I wasn't quite sure how much of MBR I'd get through, since it involves a lot of searching for objects and/or remembering where things are, and I am not good at that.  However, I did like the puzzle aspect, and well, walkthroughs exist so I was able to utilize those if I got lost, or rather, one of the objects I needed to find did.

Those are the objects you need to find in type and quantity in order to either progress or have the ability to do a puzzle to the same end.  The puzzles do come with instructions, though most of them are pretty intuitive and fairly simple.  There were a few I only succeeded in completing due to luck, but once you get into the flow of seek-and-find combined with them, the game becomes quite addictive.

It is possible that some of the items are a bit too difficult to find, and I would not have been averse to having either the option to skip the more difficult puzzles or have more help on them.  Given the game's graphic aesthetic gears it towards a younger crowd (age 8+ by my estimate), some of them might find locating objects or completing some of the puzzles difficult without help.  However, this could also just be my own search and puzzling inadequacies coming through as a bias.

The story/metaphor behind all of this is quite poignant.  The "brother rabbit" is  collecting items and solving puzzles to help his ill (and in reality hospitalized) "flower bulb" sister get better.  The vibrant and fantastic world of the game provides the perfect backdrop for how a child's imagination could be used to conceptualize and deal with the terrifying reality of a sick sibling.

It was very cute, and I'm glad I stuck with it instead of giving up due to my inadequacies at seek-and-find.  Some of the puzzles might be a bit too hard for children under ten, but I still think the game would be an excellent experience for them considering how it handles the subject matter.  If (god forbid) any little ones were going or had gone through something similar, My Brother Rabbit could be a great tool to help them deal with the large, scary, and confusing feelings around such a situation.  Note that I am in no way a doctor or therapist, and this is just my opinion based on finding similar solace in video games and other types of media.

My Brother Rabbit is currently on sale at the Nintendo eShop for $2.99 (I, myself, spent $1.99 each for both the Switch and PC version), and it is more than worth it for that price even if you're an adult playing it for yourself.

4.5 stars.

I picked this up in some or other sale on switch for 99 cents because it looked cute. It sat forever in my library until just now.

Narrative

It's about a little girl who is sick. She has a stuffed rabbit and it's about this rabbit's mission to save the girl. It's about her journey to recovery but from the eyes of a child I think. It's told through series of drawings in between the levels. It's a neat idea for a story but not really all that fleshed out.

Gameplay

It's mostly a hidden object game with some puzzles. I'm not against hidden object games I think they can be pretty fun, and this one was. The puzzles were fun too. Most were pretty easy but there were some that took me longer to solve. Think of puzzles like; move one match to get the sum correct.

Setting

It's a sort of fantasy world that represents the journey to recovery. It's goes from forests to mountains, through oceans. It has got a wide variety of levels. I think the game looked really pretty. Art was very nice and enjoyable, and that made it more fun to find the objects. I think it was also very creative how they designed the levels to incorporate thinks like medicine and syringes like a sort of twisted dream world. It was fun. Music wasn't really all that interesting, I often played with music off.

Other

Don't got much to say in this category. There were a few times I really couldn't find the last object and had to check a guide. Was all on me though.

Conclusion

If you like hidden object games this is certainly worth it. The art is great and the story is pretty cute too. I mean, it's not much more than that though. So I'd say it was worth my 99 cents for sure but I found that it's full price is 15 euros. That is way too much for this. It's pretty short, not more than 2-3 hours. Gameplay is just hidden objects and story is cute, but not very fleshed out. Art makes up for the shortness and lack of story but not for 15 euros. I would buy on sale if you enjoy these sort of games.