Fran Bow

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A girl escapes an asylum while her pills show her a world of blood and monsters.

Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, iPhone, Android
Price: Paid
Rated: Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam (97% of 23,110 reviews); 70 on Metacritic
Players: 1
Controls: Mouse: click to walk, examine and use items; the pill jar switches between worlds.
Made by: Killmonday Games
Released: 2015

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What frightens Fran, a young girl who has just found her parents murdered, wakes in a children's asylum. Her pills open a second version of every room, with blood on the walls, mutilated bodies and creatures, and switching between the two worlds to solve puzzles leaves her and you unsure which one is real.
Content: gore, self-harm, body horror, animal cruelty, mental illness, drug use, sexual harassment, flashing lights.

Fran Bow is a hand-drawn point-and-click horror adventure by the Swedish studio Killmonday Games. Fran, a girl who has seen her parents killed, escapes a children's asylum in 1944 to find her cat, and the medication she takes shows her a hidden world of gore and creatures she has to use to get by.

About Fran Bow

Fran Bow is the first game by Killmonday Games, the Swedish studio of Natalia and Isak Martinsson, released on PC, Mac and Linux in 2015, on phones in 2016 and on PlayStation, Xbox and Switch in 2023. It is a point-and-click adventure told in a hand-drawn style that looks like a dark children's picture book.

The story begins in 1944. Fran, a young girl struggling with a mental disorder, finds her parents dead and dismembered at home, runs into the woods with her black cat, Mr. Midnight, and wakes up in Oswald Asylum, a grim institution for children. Her cat is gone. She decides to escape, find him and go to her aunt, the only family she has left.

You play by clicking: you look at things, pick them up, combine them in Fran's purse and talk to more than fifty characters. The horror comes from Fran's pills. Taking one changes the room you are in: clean corridors become smeared with blood, people become corpses and things move in the dark. Many puzzles need both worlds, so you keep swallowing the pills to find what is hidden, and the line between what is real and what is in Fran's head grows thin. Mini-games in different art styles connect the chapters.

The store page warns of disturbing images, explicit violence, gore, self-harm, body horror, mental illness, animal cruelty and flashing images, seen through a child's eyes. It suits players who like story-driven adventure games and dark fairy tales more than chases and jumpscares.

How to play Fran Bow

Click to move Fran and to examine people and objects in each scene.
Pick up items and combine them in Fran's purse to solve puzzles.
Take a pill from the jar to see the hidden version of the room, where other clues and objects appear.
Talk to the characters you meet; many give you what you need for the next step.

Screenshots

Fran Bow screenshot: a corridor smeared with blood and drawings on the wall, Fran by an open door and her cat walking ahead

Fran Bow screenshot: Fran in a cosy living room with a fireplace and a table full of cakes, a photo of twin girls on the wall

Fran Bow screenshot: a skeleton in a top hat pedalling a machine in a metal workshop while Fran watches

Tips

When you are stuck, take a pill and look at the room again; the answer is often only in the other world.
Read the notes and drawings on the walls; they hint at puzzle solutions.
The store page lists self-harm, gore and animal cruelty among its themes; read it first if those matter to you.