There's plenty of relatable protagonists in video games, especially if you're a troubled girl. Whether it's Max from Life is Strange to Mae from Night in the Woods, there's certainly no shortage of troubled and vaguely upsetting young ladies - be they human or anthropomorphic animal - to pick from these days. But, perhaps the ones that shouldn't be relatable are the ones that I find myself most drawn to, specifically those from KillMonday games, like "Fran Bow" or this reviews title, "Little Misfortune". But, then again, perhaps if you grew up the way I did, you too would relate to these girls.
"Little Misfortune" is, as it states, an interactive story. To call it a "game" is somewhat misleading, as it really isn't. But it's one of the few interactive stories I've gone through that were actually enjoyable, even if it wound up being downright upsetting. An incredibly simple premise that's actually wading kneedeep in lore and worldbuilding, the "game" focuses on the titular Misfortune Hernandez Ramirez, who is - as the unreliable narrator puts it - a wonderful child from a not so wonderful family. The game consists primarily of pushing Misfortune forward through each screen, interacting with things, solving little puzzles and sometimes a small minigame. In a lot of ways, it's very much like their previous outing, "Fran Bow", but smothered in a far more saccharine lie than that game ever pretend to be.
Misfortune's mother apparently told her at one point that she wanted to get an abortion, and that she and her father were only married because she had gotten pregnant. While my parents never said it outright, I always suspected my folks shouldn't have, and likely didn't want to, had a child together. Much like Misfortune's mother, my own drank too much, while much like Misfortune's father, mine own was absent a lot, and hit my mother when he was around. And, much like Misfortune herself, I always felt like bad luck followed me wherever I want, and I often instead relied on daydreams and fantasies to hide from the awful reality around me.
So sure, I never blindly followed an eerie somewhat omnipotent voice in my head to my questionable fate, and sure I never had a fox from another dimension ensuring my safety, but the home life stuff? Yeah. That all hit, rather ironically, close to home for me.
The thing is, you're given choices during the game. Choices that, you're told, might be profound and important, but ultimately aren't. This is often a criticism of games with this sort of mechanism, but the difference is that in this game, there's a reason your choices don't ultimately matter. Yes, sometimes they lead to an alternate funny scene, which requires you to play the game more than once or use multiple saves if you wanna see everything, but in terms of big grandiose plotpoints? They're null and void there. And this is on purpose, like I said. This is to further reinforce just how utterly out of control Misfortune is to the events that surround her. She has a shitty home life, she picks up bad habits like swearing as a result of it, and she cannot control a single thing about her existence. That's a feeling I deeply relate to, especially when I was a little girl.
The inherent difference between us seems to be that Misfortune doesn't think she deserves this bad luck, or this kind of life. She yearns for better things. She puts sparkles on stuff that are bad to make them better. She has a really sunny exterior to hide her deep sadness inside. I, on the other hand, have never been remotely positive. I always believed everything that happened to me happened to me because I deserved it. I yearn for better things, but I don't in any way shape or form expect them to come to fruition, no matter the amount of years or effort put in.
Throughout the game, your co-host, Mr. Voice, keeps telling Misfortune that, if she tries hard enough, she will be rewarded with eternal happiness. But eternal happiness is a lie, I know this for a fact even without the game. Happiness in general, as a concept, is a hard thing for me to believe in, and it seems like it's that way for Misfortune as well. While she attempts to see good in things, she often admits to being unhappy, feeling unloved and being scared. She thinks that, maybe, just maybe, if she can get this eternal happiness and give it to her mother - a woman whose abuse she has yet to recognize as such because she's only eight after all - then perhaps things will get better.
In my experience, they never do. We both get away from our moms in the end, but no eternal happiness was ever in the cards for either one of us.
The climax of the story is, well, heart wrenching to say the least. At least for me it was. I won't spoil it here, in case anyone is curious to play it for themselves and see, but it kinda ruined my night with how sad, and once again relatable, it wound up being. I recognize that, for others, it likely isn't relatable in the slightest. But, when you grow up the way I did, in the home I did, in the head I did, it becomes relatable. I too had a voice for a while as a teenager that I talked to. I was put on medication for it, and eventually it went away, but personally I miss it and I've felt nothing but alone ever since. Our voices, Misfortune and my own, aren't the same, and I recognize that. But it just becomes yet another notch in the belt of ways I relate to this sad, scared little child, because I was this sad, scared little child.
There's something about the way co-creator, artist, writer and voice actress for the character, Natalia Martinsson - also cofounded of the games company with her husband - tells these stories that nobody else manages to capture. Something about the way she writes about sadness and loss and grief that is the same way I do, and it helps me not feel as alone, and I appreciate that so very very much.
Sure, my luck may never get better, and I may always be, in my own way, a little misfortune, but at least I was fortunate enough to exist in a time when indie developers are able to do things like this. To create things that touch us so deeply, in ways the medium never could before. For all my bad luck, I think this one bit of good luck is worth the price.
Yikes forever.
My name is Maggie. I write & make art for a living. If you like this review, you might also like my newest novel here, reading my media blog here and you can tip me for my work at Ko-Fi.
