The last couple of games I did here on First Six Hours were pretty long, open-world titles. While it can be fun to explore a giant world, even when broken up into many sittings, I wanted to bring us back to the sweetest spot for our theme here, and focus on a smaller more self-contained title. With that, I offer you Little Misfortune, available now on pretty much everything.
Little Misfortune is a self-described interactive story, developed by the Swedish game design studio Killmonday Games. The story centers on a glitter tossing 8-year-old little lady named Misfortune Ramirez Hernandez, as she follows a voice in her head, that she dubs “Mr. Voice,” to find the prize of Eternal Happiness to bring back to her mother. The setup and ensuing adventure are as ridiculous as they sound, and the journey is full of plenty of exciting surprises, both delightful and oftentimes macabre. It sets a tone that rides a wacky line, covering both fart jokes and real introspective notions about mortality, usually mere moments apart.
When it says it is an interactive story, it means exactly that. It is less like a point and click adventure and more like a choose-your-own-adventure, feeling closer to something like Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch or the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt movie than a full-on game. You the player ultimately choose how the story will unfold, and those choices will affect how the narrative advances, but you won’t often find yourself solving real puzzles or using trial and error to figure out necessary items or keys for advancement. There are times where the story is broken up with various little game mechanics -aiming a slingshot at one point and typing numbers into a computer at another- but more often than not you are going to simply be moving the little lady forward and making conversational choices (usually binary) to determine the flow of the story.
None of those points outlined are negatives at all, the story is interesting, emotional, and weird, almost feeling at times like something Tim Burton might do if he wasn’t afraid of colors. The setting and characters are brought to life by the art design, voice acting, and musical composition, with the art and character of Misfortune being designed and played by Natalia Martinsson and the music designed by her husband Isak. They and a team of only four other people make up the studio of Killmonday Games, and I find that quite impressive. Though Little Misfortune doesn’t break new technical ground, it shows much like Untitled Goose Game just what a small team on a low budget can do within the medium of games.
It took a little over five hours to make it through the first time, but I can say the game warrants a second playthrough. I haven’t started mine yet, but judging by the Achievement titles I can see that there are quite a few things that might play out rather differently. And I do say yet because I truly am interested to see how things could be different. Some of the choices obviously lead to the same conclusion, but just going through it, there are quite a few things that would be worth messing with, just to see the outcome. I enjoyed the world they were building, it was constantly making me feel uneasy. Misfortune herself is quite delightful, I thought. She seems like the kind of character that Natalia had already done for fun, reminding me very much of Howie Mandel’s Bobby, a character that began as a bit, but grew its own life until it became a full-on show. From Misfortune’s catchphrases of “Yikes forever,” and “Faaaancy,” to the little stories the character has built for herself about her often bleak childhood, she feels like a character from a personal place. I think it works, she’s charming when she’s clumsy yet confident. When she is struggling to understand why things can be so hard as a child of neglect, it’s heartbreaking. But her constant optimism and perseverance keep us cheering for her. It makes for an often humorous, but also emotionally stirring journey.
If you enjoy the blending of silliness and bleak, clumsy children with overactive imaginations, and/or foxes who might be named Benjamin, then Little Misfortune is a delightful way to kill some time. It is available on PC, Mac, Xbox One, PS4, Switch, and even Android and iOS. Faaaancy!