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App Army Assemble: Little Misfortune - is this dark narrative-driven game worth playing?

We ask the App Army

App Army Assemble: Little Misfortune - is this dark narrative-driven game worth playing?

Little Misfortune is an adventure game about a young girl who is led into a dangerous forest by a voice in her head. It has a dark story that's laced with a bit of humour with an art style that makes it stand out from a lot of other mobile games. So we decided to get our App Army to give it a try.

Here's what they thought:

Jim Linford

The storyline is very dark and twisted at times and the subject matter makes you think and is upsetting in places. Having said that the art style of the game is cute and lovely despite the mad stuff going on. The game is a point and click adventure and a 2D walking simulator. The story captivated me. I wanted to find out what’s going on. Gameplay so far is simple. I really enjoy this game.

Though the only downside is how much replay you can get out the game? Alternate endings to the game might not be enough of an incentive for some.

Paul Manchester

A moving, humorous and dark tale about a young girl's painful life experiences. Unfortunately, though this is told through the user basically clicking the right-hand side of the screen for two hours whilst watching the story unfold. No puzzles to speak of and little other interaction of interest. After the first hour, I gave up and watched the game playthrough on YouTube. Same experience without the constant mind-numbing finger pressing. As a book or film short I would have enjoyed this, but in this format, I just found it frustrating.

Raquel Segal

With some hours of gameplay, I was curious about the story and all the random choices I had to make, not knowing what they would change in the game later. The art is amazing! The main character's voice made me a little uncomfortable, as she looks like an adult forcing a child's voice (which may be true).

Still, I found the game fun, despite the limitation of only being able to walk sideways, and how the character walks very slowly. I think the game has a much darker story than it looks at first, and it made me curious to know what will happen until the end.

Funem

This is definitely a game - and I say game in the loosest term as its more an interactive story – that you will either like or you will hate, I don’t think there will be any real middle ground here. This is the story of a little girl who has an abusive, drunken, druggy father and an unhappy drinker of a mother. In the story, the girl is in search of eternal happiness promised to her by an invisible narrator, along the way you will see some strange sights and sounds.

These look normal to the girl and to the person narrating the story, but not to you. The narrator will break the fourth wall on many occasions to talk to you about your progress and interaction with the girl. The girl is both naive and adult at the same time, which to me is the only part which feels wrong, she obviously picks up some of the adult views she has from her parents, but they don’t come over in the way a child will see them.

As the story unfolds you will find out more about the girl and her backstory and what has happened to her, there are layers to what is going on and as you play the game, you realise all is not what it seems. I found this one of the more interesting games I have ever reviewed on here because of the nature of the story and how it gradually unfolds.

Let get this straight, if you are looking for a game, it’s not really a game in the real sense of the term, there is a mini-game or two but its more an interactive, dark and unsettling story. Graphically the game looks and feels like a hand-drawn and coloured book, the sound is, as required, but it’s all overshadowed by the voice acting.

The little girl moves between childlike and adult phrases with a lot of great voice acting and the narrator though sometimes sounding like a computer has strung the correct words together also conveys menace and care with just the right amount of emotion. There is a lot of voice work in this game.

I would say it’s an experience I am glad I had the chance to play and it’s one of the few games I have reviewed here that I have felt the need to complete, and I will do so, as I am near the end now. I am unsure if it has any real replay-ability though. I would highly recommend it, as long as you are aware its more a story than a game, with some interactive elements.

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Makara Nou

What I like most about this game are the voice acting and the dark jokes. Mr Voice is creepy and awkward, while the little girl sounds very annoying but in a cute way. Walking can be a bit slow but thanks to the dev because we can double-tap to run. Overall, it's a fun point and click experience, and this weird world has a lot to offer and explore.

Roman Valerio

The biggest disappointment about this game, which in my opinion is not a game at all, is that it does not support iPads and/or iPhones with anything older than iOS 13. To this, I would say "yikes forever", which is somewhat of a signature expression of the main heroine used extensively throughout her quest for "eternal happiness".

Like I said this is not your typical game, but more like a visual interactive novel with some random mini-games thrown in. It features a ton of dark humour and topics like death and abortion, so if this is what can easily offend you, I strongly advise to stay away from Little Misfortune.

The animation is second to none here, it feels like you are watching an indie cartoon and voiceover is also top-notch. I have not finished it yet, but I can assure you that this one will keep you occupied for quite some time as there is certain replay value, because of the decisions you have to make.

The best way to describe Little Misfortune is to use the word "super cute", which is another word combination overused by our young protagonist. After all, mobile gaming should not always be about high scores, quick taps and new mechanics - there is always a place for a good story with a happy ending or lack thereof.

Slava Kozyrev

OUH-KEY, let me start my review of Little Misfortune by saying that this is a very peculiar interactive adventure story with an absolutely gorgeous art style and voice acting. Do not get fooled by its seeming cuteness and naive look of its underaged protagonist. This is 100% an adult story with all sorts of obscenities, innuendoes and crude humour. I really liked the adoption of "breaking the fourth wall", where the adult male voice actor speaks directly to you throughout the game.

So far, I've got two gripes. First, you can experience the game only on iPhone, it has no iPad support and second, throughout the game the iPhone's auto-lock feature becomes active and I had to repeatedly tap on the screen to prevent it from turning off. As Little Misfortune would have said, "Yikes forever". I definitely recommend this gem to those iOS users who prefer a good story over gameplay and not vice versa.

Jt Hernandez

A dark humour animated novel with some simple choices to make it seem more game-like. There are a dozen or so decisions to be made throughout the story, but I have a feeling that very little will change by choosing differently. Other reviews and YouTube videos say there are only 2 endings, which is quite unfortunate. On the other hand, I'm not sure if I'd ever find myself motivated to play through the entire game more than twice.

The art and voice acting are a wonderful mix of creepy and cute. The humour is really quite dark, though, including such topics as abducted children, suicide, domestic violence. Only the cute and innocent nature of the protagonist and the hope for an explanation of what monster lurks ahead keeps the game worth playing.

The worst part, for me, was the interface. The character walks slowly, sometimes painfully so. Double-clicking to run makes her a little faster, but not much. The eye-icon that appears above points-of-interest disappears if the character is too close, too far or facing the wrong direction, so sometimes it takes many attempts to click on something. On the other hand, it sometimes is too difficult to not accidentally click something again.

Ed Davis

The game grabs your interest from the start. The initial video and then the narrator of the story interacting with the character is a different take on the genre. The gameplay is ok but does get repetitive, moving around and tapping on objects.

A few more challenging puzzle elements would have been good. The art style is nice and feels polished and there is a bit of a sinister feel to the game with the audio. A good game if you want to kill a couple of hours but not a huge about more.

Bruno Ramalho

I wasn’t expecting this one I must confess. A point and click adventure with a very dark story to tell. This is a game for adults as it touches very sensitive subjects of life and death. It’s much more an interactive story than a game, one you are only an observer most of the time. A story of a girl that lives with her parents in a not very healthy relationship, we could say abusive if you will.

She goes out looking for eternal happiness with the help of the narrator of the story who also speaks to her, and to ourselves in a “break the fourth wall kind of way”. There are choices you can make, and that could make you play the game one more time to check what consequences you would get for your new choices. The beauty of the game, besides the artwork and the deep story in itself, lies mainly in the voice acting which is spot on.

It reminds me at times of the voice quality of the game Thomas Was Alone, but it’s the girl's voice that is very unsettling, sweet and young but an adult at the same time, and with a very funny accent. Some of the things she says are very funny but in a dark humour kind of way.

As I said this game touches upon very sensitive subjects like suicide and a lot of very misfortunate events that keep happening around the girl at every turn. Some you will laugh at the silliness, some you will have your stomach turning upside down. I really like this theme and can’t wait to get to the end of the game to see what fortune awaits the girl, and us.

Armaan Modi

Little Misfortune is an interactive story more than a game. It is a rather surprising game because of the cuteness mixed with unexpected darkness. The graphics feel like a nice change in a world full of pixel art. The gameplay is very simple, the player has to just touch/hold on the icons on the screen to interact with the character and environment.

There are no puzzle-like or unique mechanics here. The game runs without problems on the Redmi Note 5 Pro with Snapdragon 636 as it features very simple graphics and gameplay. The game is okay if you want a different kind of a story but not really fun, especially because of its high price. I wouldn't recommend this game to most players, because there are many other great games, which are all much cheaper than this one.

The game does have some bugs in a few devices like the character not responding to the touch input and those bugs have been present since the game launched as a demo last year, however, Killmonday Games will release a patch soon to fix those problems. This game is one of the games that won't see much success because of the price tag and very simple gameplay.

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Stephen Gregson-Wood
Stephen Gregson-Wood
Stephen brings both a love of games and a very formal-sounding journalism qualification to the Pocket Gamer team.