Gretel and Hansel

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A watercolour Grimm tale where almost every wrong click kills a child.

Platforms: Browser
Price: Free
Rated: 4.67 of 5 from 4,307 votes on Newgrounds, with about 2.5 million views; Daily Feature and Weekly Users' Choice; on Gamasutra's best freeware games of 2009 and Game Rant's best horror Flash games
Players: 1
Controls: Arrow keys or WASD to move, mouse to click and to use items
Made by: makopudding
Released: 2009

What frightens The Brothers Grimm tale told as its makers imagine it: Gretel and her brother are being sent into the woods, and you have to get them there alive. The soft watercolour storybook look hides a cruel world where nearly every wrong click ends in an animated, often gruesome death, with ten deaths to find and the witch waiting further on.
Content: animated deaths, violence.

Gretel and Hansel is a free point-and-click horror game by makopudding, released on Newgrounds in 2009 and still playable in the browser. You help Gretel and her brother survive their way to the woods in a hand-painted storybook world where most mistakes end in a grisly death.

About Gretel and Hansel

Gretel and Hansel is a Flash game made by the Texas-based developer makopudding with djkingdb and mikerudolph, released on Newgrounds in October 2009. Based on the Brothers Grimm tale and the creatures of other Grimm stories, it won Daily Feature and Weekly Users' Choice, appeared on Gamasutra's list of the best freeware games of 2009, and with its sequel has been played millions of times. Newgrounds still runs it in the browser, for free.

The game is drawn in pale watercolours, like a children's storybook. You click on Gretel, her brother and the things around them to move the story on: what to take, where to go, what to touch and what to leave alone. The goal is simply to get the two children to the woods alive.

The horror is in how badly that can go. Almost every wrong choice ends in an animated death, some absurd and some chilling, and there are ten of them to find; the maker added a medal for seeing all ten in one play. The gentle look makes each of them land harder.

It continues in Gretel and Hansel Part 2, and makopudding's studio Spider House is remaking both parts with a new Part 3 for Steam, where a free demo of Part 1 is out. It suits players who like dark fairy tales and point-and-click puzzles where failing is half the fun.

How to play Gretel and Hansel

Open Gretel and Hansel on Newgrounds and press play; it runs in the browser.
Move with the arrow keys or WASD and click on the children and the things around them to act.
Think before each click: a wrong move often kills one of them.
Use what you learn from each death to find the safe way through.
Get both children to the woods alive, then go on to Part 2.

Tips

The game auto-saves, so you can stop and come back later, as the maker notes.
Seeing all ten deaths in one play, then waiting to the end of the credits, earns the Grimm Master medal.
The maker posted a walkthrough in his Newgrounds news if you get stuck.