#loveindies Day 11: Little Briar Rose (Elf Games)
Little Briar Rose grabbed me with its gorgeous artwork – stained glass-inspired graphics with vivid colours and cute character designs. It even has a few awards to its name, but Elf Games – located in Italy – doesn’t have much that I could find since, so I’m a little unsure if future projects are in the works. They do, however, have a couple other games available on itch.io.
Little Briar Rose has a simple premise – the player controlsa prince who’s come to lift a curse on the land. The forest is overgrown withbriars, and deep within lies the unreachable castle where a princess lies in acursed sleep. In the forest, there are four villages of magical creatures, andyou’ll find yourself helping the gnomes, spriggans, fairies, and mermen inorder to bring calm and peace to the land. Each village houses very differentpersonalities and challenges, and it will be up to you to play not only thehero, but also the matchmaker, mediator, and problem-solver.
The first thing you’ll notice about this little game is thatit’s absolutely stunning. The stained glass aesthetic is beautiful, with vibrantcolours. I love to look at artful games, and Little Briar Rose is absolutely noexception – it’s a beautiful little piece of art. Even better, each village is abit different. Everything is lovely.
I found Little Briar Rose’s dialogue and characters quitecharming. If you get puzzles wrong, you’ll find your prince cursed, and a newprince arriving to take up his quest. By the end I’d cycled through a fewprinces. The nice part is that you don’t really get a game over – you just keeptrying. Each prince gets the previous prince’s items, and you pick up rightwhere you left off. Unfortunately, it also tied into my least favorite part ofthe game – at the end you’re tasked with uncursing all the princes, and theanimations and dialogues that go with it is just… really exhausting. It’s a fundetail until you’re forced to deal with it over and over again.
The puzzles are a little bit of an odd set. They’re varied,so you won’t find yourself doing the same thing over again, with the exceptionof the final puzzle for each level, which is just an increasingly difficultchallenge to make a path between a ball and its final destination. Fetch questsand such do require some guessing and puzzle solving – for example, there are afew things you can’t succeed at until you find information. Many of the activepuzzles, however, are little more than being able to tap the correct items. Thismade the game feel a little less active and involved at times, but it did alsokeep things from getting too exhausting or boring.
Overall, Little Briar Rose will take you about two hours tocomplete (maybe more or less depending on how the puzzles treat you), but it’sdefinitely a charming little game. You can pick it up for about $5, and whilethe replayability is low since the puzzles are easily remembered, it should bea fun time for the first playthrough!