If you know me, you know how much I adore challenging puzzles, interesting art, and moving stories in games. I’ve been known to enjoy a good point-and-click in my time, particularly if the story makes it worthwhile. I thought that My Brother Rabbit had potential: it promised puzzles, unique illustrations, and a story whose premise led me to expect an emotional ride. Everything was set up for me to love this game. But, oh boy, was I let down.

The premise of My Brother Rabbit is a simple one. A young girl falls ill and her brother sets out to help her in the best way he can – by providing distraction. Thanks to his help, the two children escape into a whimsical world of make-believe. The story-in-the-story is that a stuffed rabbit toy must help his sick flower friend to get better; the parallels between the brother-sister and rabbit-flower pairs are clear. They travel far and wide, solving a variety of puzzles to clear the obstacles in their path.

It sounds good on paper, and on the bright side, My Brother Rabbit is playable. It runs well and there are no technical issues. Unfortunately, however, the gameplay is lacking. As in many point-and-clicks, progression is tied to collecting items and using them to unlock the next obstacle. Generally speaking, when this mechanic is done well in games, you feel like you are making a real breakthrough. When done badly, it feels like a chore.

In My Brother Rabbit, unfortunately, it’s the latter. Obstacles require you to collect an arbitrary number of identical items scattered throughout the level before you can proceed; sometimes these have an added puzzle to solve before you can continue. The puzzles themselves don’t really make you think and the game relies heavily on common puzzle tropes that get old fast; these include things like tangrams and connecting coloured dots with lines that don’t overlap, pictured below. There is also rarely any rationale provided for these challenges; they mostly feel as though they have been put there to give the player something to do. Although this lack of logic might be well-suited to the game’s atmosphere, it does make the gameplay feel mundane.

One of the first puzzles you come across in My Brother Rabbit.

This might have been manageable if the gameplay had been designed to let you make progress quickly, but it’s not. Specifically, you can only collect items once you have identified and interacted with the obstacle that you’ll need them for. This means that as you play through, you’ll see items that very, very clearly are there for you to collect, but you won’t be able to pick them up until you have identified the next place to put them. Consequently, there’s a lot of meaningless backtracking. I might have been more forgiving of this had there been some in-game justification for why you could not interact with these items until something else happened, but, for the most part, there simply wasn’t. This made the game quite frustrating to play through, and it extended my play time in a way that was neither rewarding nor enjoyable.

And finally, although the answers are mostly clear, occasionally the solutions seem impossible to find. I spent more time than I care to admit on a number of stages where I simply could not see the final item on my list. Thankfully, you can tell from the HUD whether there are items to find on a certain screen, which can keep your search somewhat contained. However, when you can’t immediately see an item that needs collecting, there’s not much you can do about it other than staring at the screen and clicking on items indiscriminately until you find it.

The art in My Brother Rabbit is admittedly stunning.

That said, if anything could be said for My Brother Rabbit it’s that it captures the whimsy of childhood imaginings perfectly. The game’s disregard for realism is perfect for the story and the art is admittedly excellent. The illustrations are charmingly weird and there are interesting details wherever you look. The music is the perfect accompaniment to the art style; it is atmospheric, generally serene, and for the most part quite pleasant to listen to.

I also enjoyed the story’s delivery. Although most of the gameplay occurs in the children’s world of make-believe, between each of these chapters are beautiful, hand-drawn snapshots of the family’s life in the “real world”. There is no dialogue, which allows the player to interpret the story as they wish. Although there wasn’t as much to the story as I was hoping, it successfully conveyed the relatable emotions of worry and fear for a loved one’s health.

We’ve all been there, kid.

Nevertheless, I can’t really say I enjoyed my time with My Brother Rabbit. At the end of the day, it felt more like a drawn-out game of Eye Spy than anything truly engaging. While this may perfectly capture the innocence of childhood, I’d be lying if I said I don’t strongly prefer games with more substance. As I’ve said in other reviews, you need more than interesting art to make a game worth your time; unfortunately, the art and atmosphere were probably the only things I really liked about this game. Perhaps My Brother Rabbit is one to pick up for the kids in the family, however, if you’re looking for engaging gameplay you won’t find it here.

As always, thanks for reading! If My Brother Rabbit has left you feeling underwhelmed, never fear! For your point-and-click fix, check out Detective Gallo or the highly-acclaimed Oxenfree. Or, if you disagree with my thoughts, drop me a line in the comments or come chat in our Discord! And, finally, to keep up with all the latest Nindie news, follow us on Twitter – you can find me here.