The life of a child, something we all either miss or don’t miss. It’s also something that is a different experience for all of us. Even as children we fall for the ideas of imaginary and comforting things within our lives and even as adults sometimes we do fall into that as well as sometimes reality just isn’t that fun. The world of video games is often one we find comfort in as children and as adults. So, this week I present to you, Little Misfortune. An indie game that is by KillMonday Games, they also authored the game Fran Bow, so if you know anything about that game this one will not be very surprising to you on what ends up happening.
Little Misfortune is about a young girl, a child, named Little Misfortune as the title of the game says. You start off by entering her room with a narrator who is going to explain her life to you while you play the game. However, unlike in most games where there is a narrator, Little Misfortune can interact with the narrator and have full conversations with him. This leads him to be rather shocked as he hadn’t ever had an experience like this before. He makes up a game for them to play together, a game where Little Misfortune can win her ‘Eternal Happiness’. Which to a child sounds wonderful especially if they’re already living in a bad situation just like her. However, after a bit, Little Misfortune begins to walk around the home whilst you learn the controls, you can find her little tent in her room, and her journal. When you find her journal that is when things begin to get a little bit unsightly and begin to reveal the actual backstory to who Little Misfortune is.
As you go through the game she ends up talking about how her dad is really mean and gets worse after drinking his ‘juice’ and this causes her mother to be very distant and emotionally cut off from Little Misfortune. Even at one point she mentions how her mom gives ‘hugs behind the dumpster’. Aside from that one comment, there are even more disturbing things you run into on the way through this game, such as a dog dying very brutally, topics of puberty, and walking into a man’s house for a ‘birthday party’ but finding him hanging from the ceiling and Misfortune calls him a pinata. So, yeah, this game does get very dark.
However, there is an option to change how these dark things appear. Misfortune at the beginning of the game gets given some glitter as that is one of her favorite things. So, when there is something rather horrible, she throws glitter on it and a cute little cut out paper drawing will appear over the rather gruesome thing. Honestly, this is a really cute addition to something that can be rather…traumatic to experience. I think this part of the game is really well-done and thought through. While you go through the game the amount of things you glitter does determine your ending as there are two. If you glitter everything you get the happier ending where after the normal base ending that I’ll explain in a moment there is a cutscene where you get shown the mother. The mother takes off her mask for the first time all game and will actually be happy instead of faking the happiness with the mask on which is a big theme in the game.
If you do not glitter everything your ending will not include that, but it will just show what the game has actually been this whole time. When you start off the game you walk through the street and the cutscene glitches on purpose. However, you later find out that this happened because Misfortune was hit by a car and ended up dying from this accident. So, in reality you are playing as her ghost, searching for the eternal happiness promised by the narrator who ends up being the villain of the whole entire game. There is a cute fox that accompanies you occasionally through the journey named ‘Benjamin’ who is there to protect Misfortune. Within the journal you can find in her room at the beginning she mentions Benjamin quite a few times. However, for some reason the narrator seems to find the fox dirty, disgusting, and insists Misfortune should stay away from him. However, Misfortune ends up ignoring the narrator on this and just continues to follow Benjamin through the woods, finding these dolls with clues on them about what is really going on. Misfortune, although a child, is not the brightest and doesn’t quite understand the messages on the dolls, as she is more focused on Benjamin, the fox man of her dreams. Children, am I right? This ends up leading you into Benjamin’s base where finally Misfortune starts to get the hint that the narrator is not quite who he seems to be this whole time. As once in the base, Misfortune doesn’t hear him anymore. Benjamin has put a spell of some sort on his base to keep creatures like the narrator out. At one point in the game you walk past a missing children poster board..as you walk through the base, and consider the dolls as well, it is very alluded to that these kids have gone missing because they have also been given the journey of ‘Eternal Happiness’. At several points in the game Misfortune will mention a friend, who is pretty quickly revealed to be a ghost…during one scene with the ghost however, it’s very apparent he’s warning her about who the narrator really is, but because he speaks Japanese she doesn’t quite understand it. After this very long winded adventure you end up back at Misfortune’s house but the tone has shifted by a lot..as you walk into the house it’s darker, the lights are out, no one’s home.. Going into Misfortune’s room is when a huge cutscene almost boss fight type of thing ends up triggering. Misfortune hiding in her little tent, yelling, arguing with the narrator, who we finally get to see what he ends up looking like.. I won’t spoil how this scene/boss fight ends but eventually it does and you’re whisked away from the home with Benjamin as your new guide.
Once you finish the game you get brought to this other dimension, this other dimension being one that was introduced in Fran Bow, insinuating that Fran Bow and Misfortune are now in the same universe and there will be a connection game of the two of them at some point in the future. There are a lot of callback references to Fran-Bow in Misfortune especially near the end, which as a fan of both games I enjoyed a lot.
Honestly, this game is one of my favorites but it’s a lot of emotions you’re going to experience when you go to play. It can be overwhelming and intense but it’s one of those games where there is a turn around every corner and can be darker than what the outside looks like. I love the storyline of this game and although the choices may not fully affect the ending, the choices are still fun to go through and figure out what this child has been through and try to work with her to this goal, this idea, of ‘Eternal Happiness’.
I think the idea of ‘Eternal Happiness’ is something we all want, and oftentimes we stress about it quite a bit. What I really like about this game is that yes the whole point of it is the idea of ‘Eternal Happiness’ but as you go along the way it actually forces you to think about the present, and for me it gets me very introspective about how I want to live my life. This is a game that I know probably won’t be very popular but I think that for those who do end up playing it as it is available on several platforms such as; Android, iOS, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Linux, Macos, and obviously PC’s, will end up having an experience that may change some thoughts on video games but also how we approach life and how we go after our own goal of ‘Eternal Happiness.’ Although this game is adorable on the outside, as I said in the title this game is preciously deceiving.
