Fran Bow (Killmonday Games, 2015)

Played on PC

Fran Bow (2015) is an indie point-and-click adventure game in which players accompany a little girl, Fran and her cat, Mr Midnight. Their journey leads from a mental asylum to terrifying alternative realities and confusing dimensions where Fran is haunted by dark figures preventing her from returning home and finding out who killed her parents.

‘Adventure games focus on puzzle solving within a narrative framework’ (Bronstring, 2012) and Fran Bow (2015) is no different in this sense. During gameplay players have to run mutually beneficial errands for various different creatures collecting useful items in the process in order to complete the game’s main objective. In addition to the various real puzzles that have to be solved, the continuous activity of seeking items and locations on its own poses a puzzle, an obstacle that the player has to tackle. As Newman notes ‘it is the job of the player to deduce rules through exploration, invention and imagination’ (Newman, 2005: 21), therefore Fran’s first on-screen interactions with her environment also represent the player’s process of testing the rules and limitations of the virtual world that Fran (the player’s avatar) inhabits.

Upon loading the first chapter of the game (after the prologue), Fran is shown laying on her bed, only opening her eyes when the player clicks with the mouse. This is the first confirmation that our real life actions (clicking) are closely tied with Fran’s virtual existence (awakening). After stealing some unlabelled red pills from the nurse, however, the little girl gains the ability to enter ‘hyper-reality’, a gruesome and nightmarish version of her reality that often reveal hidden information and items that help Fran along her journey. This offers new possibilities for the players looking for clues to solve the puzzles presented to them and find answers to the main mystery. While the first couple of visits to the ‘hyper-reality’ are terrifying and disturbing, and even though the gory visuals remain shocking throughout, popping a pill becomes a tool of puzzle solving during further gameplay. As it is often argued, ‘tightly defined puzzles offer little latitude for creativity and limit the scope for individual solutions’ (Rollings and Morris cited in Newman, 2005: 24); the player cannot chose to experience the game without ‘giving’ the tablets to Fran.

Nevertheless, the story of a girl who is locked up in an asylum, desperately misses her cat and both her parents has just been murdered also provokes an emotional engagement from players that clashes with a rational process of puzzle solving. The game contains plenty of both skippable and un-skippable dialogue; the latter is used to move the main narrative forward, while the former offers a pull-narrative that introduces us to a strong-willed, defiant, witty and observant Fran along with the many other quirky inhabitants of various realities. While the challenge and the ‘aha-moment’ (see Swain, 2015) comes from the pre-defined solutions of logical and environmental puzzles, our investment in and interpretation of Fran’s story is individual. This is supported by Neitzel who notes that ‘in addition to the position as an agent that the player has in every game, he or she is also assigned the position of an observer’ (Neitzel, 2005: 230). While time and time again Fran – through the player’s actions – proves to be a worthy and cunning heroine, she is still tormented by gory displays of her own death. This might raise questions in the player about the girl’s sanity, since gameplay progression is indeed successfully achieved through puzzle solving, yet this does not seem to ease any of the narrative tension surrounding the dark and otherworldly hallucinations.

Even though, the logical and environmental puzzles that are familiar from all adventure games prescribe a certain narrative and chronology to the events the player witnesses, the conclusion becomes and remains unique to the individual. While Fran Bow’s (2015) finale does not provide a definite answer to many of the mysteries around Fran’s past and mental state, the vision of freedom and happiness in the last scene offer narrative closure. In this state, the game is over, there are no more items to find or puzzles to solve, yet arguably, the player’s inner interpretation process can only truly begin at this point, when all the pieces of the jigsaw are present. The game’s structure and reliance on puzzles ‘moves the interactor toward a single solution, toward finding the one way out’ (Murray, 1997: 132) from the maze created by Fran’s journey through madness. However, the arguably indeterminate narrative can also be seen as ‘an affirmation of the reader’s freedom of interpretation’ (Murray, 1997: 133); there are no real answers given, there is no one – or any – way out from this maze.

The gory visuals of Fran Bow (2015) may not be that different from some of the AAA horror titles out there and the mental asylum, the dark forest and the jump scares might also be recognized by players as classic horror components. The game offers only limited agency over what happens with Fran and her journey always leads to the same ambiguous ending. Nevertheless, an emotional investment is created in the beginning of the game by the dark and tragic mystery in which the girl is caught up. This is further fuelled by her likeable personality and relentless curiosity that makes all the quirky dialogue worth reading and all the surreal locations worth visiting. Point-and-click adventures have the ability to tell ‘heartfelt stories most games can’t touch’ (Manuel, 2013). Games like To the Moon (2011), Broken Age (2014) or Kentucky Route Zero (2013) sacrifice some of the flexibility and agency that is often provided to players in modern titles, yet their narrative richness ensures a gaming experience that lasts long after we leave their virtual landscapes. Playing Fran Bow (2015) and solving its puzzles can provide the means to arrive at a certain finish line, but the game itself remains far from finished; it lives on in our psyche hungry for narrative closure and clarity. Fran Bow (2015) is a story not so much about madness, as it is about an escape from and to imagination – not unlike how we escape to a virtual space every time we start a ‘New Game’.

Bibliography:

Bronstring, M. (2012) ‘What are Adventure Games?’ on Adventure Gamers [online], available at: http://www.adventuregamers.com/articles/view/17547 [last accessed: 07/10/2015]

Cardboard Computer (2013) Kentucky Route Zero [digital] PC, Windows, US: Cardboard Computer.

Couture, J. (2015) ‘Fran Bow and the Appeal of the Ambiguous Ending’ on Gamasutra [online], available at: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/252997/Fran_Bow_and_the_appeal_of_the_ambiguous_ending.php [last accessed: 07/10/2015]

Double Fine Productions (2014) Broken Age [digital] PC, Windows, US: Double Fine Productions/Nordic Games.

Fernandez-Vara, C. and Thomson, A. (2010) ‘Procedural Generation of Narrative Puzzles in Adventure Games: The Puzzle-Dice System’ on Academic.edu [online], available at: https://www.academia.edu/1629350/Procedural_Generation_of_Narrative_Puzzles_in_Adventure_Games_The_Puzzle-Dice_System [last accessed: 07/10/2015]

Freebird Games (2011) To the Moon [digital] PC, Windows, Canada: Freebird Games.

Killmonday Games (2015) Fran Bow [digital] PC, Windows, Sweden: Killmonday Games.

Manuel, R. (2013) ‘How Adventure Games Came Back from the Dead’ on PCWorld [online], available at: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2026802/how-adventure-games-came-back-from-the-dead.html [last accessed: 07/10/2015]

Murray, J. (1997) ‘Agency’ in J. Murray (ed.) Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 126-153.

Neitzel, B. (2005) ‘Narrativity in Computer Games’ in J. Raessens and J. Goldstein (eds.) Handbook of Computer Game Studies, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT University Press, pp. 227-245.

Newman, J. (2004) ‘What is a Videogame? Rules, Puzzles and Simulations: Defining the Object of Study’ in J. Newman (ed.) Videogames. London: Routledge, pp. 9-28.

Rhodes, L. (2013) ‘Another Puzzling Story’ on Culture Ramp [online], available at: http://cultureramp.com/another-puzzling-story/ [last accessed: 07/10/2015]

Swain, E. (2015) ‘Challenge and Abstract Narrative in Adventure Games’ on Pop Matters [online], available at: http://www.popmatters.com/post/193291-challenge-and-abstract-narrative-in-adventure-games/ [last accessed: 07/10/2015]

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