Title: My Brother Rabbie
Genre: Point-and-Click, Puzzle, Adventure
Developer: Artifex Mundi

System: Nintendo Switch
Regular Price: $14.99
Release Date: September 21, 2018

My Brother Rabbit is point-and-click search and puzzle game released by Polish game developer Artifex Mundi for a variety of platforms and consoles.  It is set in a surreal and beautifully drawn world that explores how a young child uses imagination to cope with an uncertain and frightening situation.

This is one of the many games I purchased a while ago when it was on sale at the Nintendo eShop, but I didn’t consider playing it until I was in between games and coming off of my Harvestella demo high with nothing substantial to fill that void (Harvestella has since been released on 11/4/22).  I wasn’t quite sure how much of MBR I’d get through, since it involves a lot of searching for objects and/or remembering where things are, and I am not good at that.  However, I did like the puzzle aspect, and well, walkthroughs exist so I was able to utilize those if I got lost, or rather, one of the objects I needed to find did.

Note where the light grey arrow in the top right corner is pointing

Those are the objects you need to find in type and quantity in order to either progress or have the ability to do a puzzle to the same end.  The puzzles do come with instructions, though most of them are pretty intuitive and fairly simple.  There were a few I only succeeded in completing due to luck, but once you get into the flow of seek-and-find combined with them, the game becomes quite addictive.

It is possible that some of the items are a bit too difficult to find, and I would not have been averse to having either the option to skip the more difficult puzzles or have more help on them.  Given the game’s graphic aesthetic gears it towards a younger crowd (age 8+ by my estimate), some of them might find locating objects or completing some of the puzzles difficult without help.  However, this could also just be my own search and puzzling inadequacies coming through as a bias.

The story/metaphor behind all of this is quite poignant.  The “brother rabbit” is  collecting items and solving puzzles to help his ill (and in reality hospitalized) “flower bulb” sister get better.  The vibrant and fantastic world of the game provides the perfect backdrop for how a child’s imagination could be used to conceptualize and deal with the terrifying reality of a sick sibling.

It was very cute, and I’m glad I stuck with it instead of giving up due to my inadequacies at seek-and-find.  Some of the puzzles might be a bit too hard for children under ten, but I still think the game would be an excellent experience for them considering how it handles the subject matter.  If (god forbid) any little ones were going or had gone through something similar, My Brother Rabbit could be a great tool to help them deal with the large, scary, and confusing feelings around such a situation.  Note that I am in no way a doctor or therapist, and this is just my opinion based on finding similar solace in video games and other types of media.

My Brother Rabbit is currently on sale at the Nintendo eShop for $2.99 (I, myself, spent $1.99 each for both the Switch and PC version), and it is more than worth it for that price even if you’re an adult playing it for yourself.

4.5 stars.

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