The gameplay consists of a third-person point-and-click adventure. There are bloody eyeballs on both sides of the screen, which take Fran into different rooms in their respective directions when clicked. Sometimes, clicking an object can result in the protagonist commenting on it, with multiple descriptions for the same item. Some items will be sent to her inventory. Collected objects can be interacted with in three ways: used, examined or combined. Fran can also talk to certain characters, occasionally with the option of choosing between different dialogue options.
In one scene, the player controls the protagonist's cat. Additionally, a small portion of Fran Bow consists of minigames situated within the broader narrative that present more complex logical challenges.
The goal, according to Natalia, was to make the puzzles a seamless part of the story, in a way that felt connected and complex.
Plot
Gameplay screenshot
The story takes place in 1944, over the course of five chapters. It centers around Fran, a ten-year-old girl with a happy family. One day, a monster appears and she finds her parents brutally dismembered. The girl flees from her house, only to collapse in the nearby woods and be brought into Oswald Asylum. Now she has to deal with her mental condition, as well as being separated from her black cat, and only friend, Mr. Midnight.
Chapter 1
Fran is distressed during her time in the asylum, denying mental issues and asking for her kitty. Under the care of psychiatrist Dr. Deern, she is administered Duotine pills, an experimental drug to treat her "madness". It causes vivid hallucinations of a phantasmagoricparallel universe, filling the room with blood, mutilated bodies and shadowy entities. The side effects make the doctor decide to stop the treatment, but Fran's visions tell her she needs the pills in order to escape and reunite with her beloved cat.
In multiple instances, an evil creature with horns, called Remor, appears with the apparent intent to taunt and torment the young girl. Ultimately she is able to get out of her imprisonment, by fleeing into a nocturnal forest in which she encounters ghostly nature spirits.
Chapter 2
She finds Mr. Midnight, but they end up trapped together in a haunted house that belongs to conjoined twins named Clara and Mia Buhalmet. The sisters claim they want Fran to complete a ritual to separate them. The young girl eventually tricks the two, takes her cat and escapes. When the girl attempts to cross a bridge of roots, it frays and collapses.
Chapter 3
Fran awakens to discover that she has been transformed into a tree in a brighter world called Ithersta, a land where vegetables, insects, pine cones, and roots live in harmony. There she meets Palontras who helps her return home.
Chapter 4
After departing Ithersta, Fran meets Itward, a giant skeletal creature. She discovers that it was Itward who had helped her in her search for Mr. Midnight. Itward tries to take Fran back home in his flying machine. While in the flying machine, Itward throws a surprise party for Fran's eleventh birthday.
However, the flying machine is sabotaged into crashing by evil spirits, and Fran Bow and Itward are separated. Fran awakens near her home where she is taken away by Dr. Deern. After visiting Fran's parents' grave, Remor appears and captures them.
Chapter 5
She is trapped in a hell-like dimension, ruled by Remor's mother, Mabuka. It is revealed Fran's aunt, Grace, and Dr. Oswald, who experimented on Grace and Fran's mother, had Remor possess Fran to murder her parents believing Fran's suffering is key to his experiment. After Oswald shoots her, Itward and Palontras come to save Fran, killing Grace and Oswald. After being revived, Fran, Mr. Midnight, Itward, and Palontras fly away with Fran resolving to be happy despite everything.
Throughout the game, Fran and other characters grapple with psychological trauma, survive the abuse of parents and doctors, and learn what it means to live amongst many types of beings and spirits.
Development
Fran Bow was developed by Swedish studio Killmonday Games, composed of Natalia Martinsson (née Figueroa) and Isak Martinsson.
According to Natalia, the initial goal for the Indiegogocrowdfunding campaign was 20,000 dollars. However, despite obtaining 28,000 dollars, the team realized it was still not enough to comfortably develop the game. It forced them to be very mindful of their spending, an experience she called "illuminating". When the resources were almost exhausted, Isak's grandfather passed away and some of the inherited money was dedicated to the project. She describes the later portion of development as especially stressful.
The plot of the game includes several elements from Natalia's life as a child and teenager. She recounts being a witness to family violence, part of a religious sect and exposed to many different medications as attempts to treat her mental condition. According to her, the process of creating the game felt "therapeutic", since it allowed her to expose important personal experiences (both positive and negative).
Fran Bow sold 10,000 copies in its first month. The game received a score of 70/100 on review aggregation website Metacritic, indicating a mixed response. Adam Smith, writing at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, gave the game a positive review, describing it as a game that "sits alongside Wonderland and Oz – imaginative, strange, unsettling, intelligent and charged with a rare and beautiful sense of hope". Smith felt, however, that some plot threads were not satisfactorily concluded. Joel Couture, in an article for Gamasutra, used Fran Bow to discuss the merits of an ambiguous ending; Figueroa responded that she preferred to "give the answers in a metaphorical way", allowing players to interpret those signals through their own experiences.
The Sorrowvirus: A Faceless Short Story
Fran Bow also appears in The Sorrowvirus: A Faceless Short Story as an animate doll, used with the permission of Killmonday Games. Fran Bow in The Sorrowvirus: A Faceless Short Story holds no canonical connection to its parent title and is instead a guest-star in a separate video game universe.
Future
On September 3rd 2025, during Killmonday’s 10th anniversary Afterlive stream, an untitled follow-up game was officially announced. It will serve as a crossover between Fran Bow and Killmonday’s other game Little Misfortune, which is set in the same universe.
