Trigger/Content warning: This game has themes of murder, death, abuse, animal death, mental illness, and most of these things happen to young children. Please read with precaution and take care of yourself.
On August 17th, 2015, an indie story game with the 90s point-and-click game mechanic was released. On the surface, Fran Bow was a puzzle filled, easy to follow story of a young girl experiencing life-changing trauma and how she navigates her new life. As the story progresses, we are introduced to themes of 1940s psychology, experimental surgeries, religious imagery, young children with vast traumatic backgrounds, authoritative abuse, alternate realities, and even the supernatural.
The opening of the game is a cut scene with simple black and white drawings of Fran’s life before the plot of the game. We are introduced to nine-year-old Fran, her parents, her cat Mr. Midnight, and her aunt Grace. We are also shown a ghostly figure with an animal skull where a head should be. This creature appears after Fran finds the dead and mutilated bodies of her parents. The ghostly creature haunts Fran through her journey as a reminder of the traumatic murder of her parents. The creature tries to make Fran believe she was responsible for her parents’ deaths, and that she will be the next to die because of it.
The game starts with Fran in a mental hospital with other children. She has been separated from her cat, Mr. Midnight. She is deemed a troublemaker by the nurses and has been prescribed a medicine called Duotine. This medication is a psychoactive drug that allows Fran to see and roam around an alternate version of her reality. This new reality is filled with death, ghostly figures, and secret messages. To escape, Fran must rely on the pills as well as the help of other children in the hospital. Once making it out, Fran must make it through a hedge maze filled with shadow monsters and bug creatures. At the end of the maze is a sewer and walking through will draw chapter one to a close.
Chapter two opens with Fran stepping out of the sewer and into the unfamiliar forest. She meets a large bug-man and his pet beetlepig, a rat who wants their fur brushed, ghostly heads hanging from trees by their hair, and a pinecone family. To leave this forest, Fran must assist all of these creatures and in return, they help her through a small door at the base of a wishing well. This door brings Fran into a colorful home filled with frilly decorating, beautiful foods, and interesting family photos of two twin sister. Continuing through the house, Fran finds paintings of the ghostly creature that stalks her, doll heads and dolls in cages, bloodstains, and even a dead body. Fran makes it to the attic where she finds her beloved cat, Mr. Midnight, trapped in a bird cage. In order to free her cat from the cage, Fran must meet the owners of the house and help them preform a ritual. The owners, Mia and Clara, are twin girls who have been sewn together at the hip. Their backstory is unclear at this point in the story, but their motives are clear: they want Fran to complete a ritual that could get her killed. Instead, Fran performs a ritual to redeem Mia and Clara’s trapped souls. Once they are freed, Fran is able to retrieve the key to free Mr. Midnight. This chapter ends with Fran and Mr. Midnight traveling across the ocean on the back of a large toad and ending up on a new island inhabited by root, tree, and vegetable people.
In this new world, Fran finds that she has become a tree person as well. Fran and Mr. Midnight meet the king of this new reality, and he introduces them to someone who can help Fran become human once more. They are introduced to the doctor of the realm, a large, flying, pink axolotl named Palontras. He takes Fran to his island where he tries to help her but is unable to completely return her to her human form. He advices Fran to visit the wizard atop the mountain as he might be able to help. Once more, Fran must complete puzzles, riddles, and quests to complete this goal, but she is ultimately able to become human once more. The end of the chapter is a mini game where Fran must run away from a large troll creature to safety.
Chapter four is broken into two parts. The first starts with Fran and Mr. Midnight back in a forest that Fran doesn’t recognize. She has lost her pills but finds them tied to a string. She tries to grab the bottle, but it is pulled away. Fran follows the moving bottle until she finds herself stepping directly into a net trap. She is quickly able to escape, but when she does, she meets an important new figure. Itward is a large, lanky, skeleton man with a top hat and fancy suit. He has Fran’s best interest at heart and is prepared to help her escape from her hardships for good. She must help him get his ship started, but once she does, the three of them board the flying ship. Itward’s ship holds most of the lore, backstories, and information that you can find in the game. You must complete more puzzles, as well as ones that make Fran question Itward’s intentions. In the end, Itward helps Fran fight off the ghostly creature that’s been following her and earns her trust.
The second part begins when Fran and Mr. Midnight attempt to enter their home. The door is locked, so Fran instructs Mr. Midnight to enter through the window and open the front door for her. While Mr. Midnight is in the house, the head doctor at the mental hospital drives up to the house and insists Fran should get inside his car. The doctor doesn’t believe Fran when she says Mr. Midnight is inside the house; rather, the doctor believes Mr. Midnight died alongside Fran’s parents. During the drive, we find out that the doctor had recently been fired as he began to question the goings-on within his own hospital. Fran convinces him to take her to the graveyard where her family is buried to try and prove the existence of multiple realities. They dig up her family’s grave but ultimately find the skeletal remains of this realities Mr. Midnight. While leaving the cemetery, the doctor is killed by the ghostly figure following Fran and chapter four ends.
Chapter five opens with Fran chained to her childhood bed. Her aunt comes in and explains that she was the one who restrained Fran, and that it is for her own safety. To escape, Fran must depend on the alternate versions of herself who inhabit the realities around hers. When she manages to escape, she must complete more complicated puzzles before she can leave her bedroom. Getting through her bedroom door leads her into a brand-new reality with doors on the walls, ceilings, and floors. The reality seems to be floating in the middle of space, not bound by time or regular physics. Fran must pass through all of these rooms, solving more puzzles and helping the inhabitants of this plane. She finally makes it into the final room and finds herself in a waiting room lobby, very similar to the one back at the mental hospital. She trades tickets with another patient so she can enter the doctor’s office first. This is where she finds that the doctor had not actually been killed at the cemetery. He is sitting in an electric chair, bound with leather binds. Mr. Midnight is also there, once more trapped in a cage.
The end of the game is insane twist after even crazier twist, and I will save all of that for the next part. In the second half of this mini-series, I will dive into the deep lore I did not touch on here, historical importance, and even fan theories. I highly encourage anyone to play through this game, even after reading through this post. Fran Bow has a simple mechanic, but it is a powerful game with a compelling story that remains important when discussing mental health today.
