Let’s back up a bit—Bramble: The Mountain King is an indie title developed by Dimfrost Games and published by Merge Games that tells the story of a young boy, Olle, and his adventurous sister Lillemor. Using classical Nordic tales as its base, Bramble: The Mountain King hopes to take us through an incredible audio-visual tour of classic folktales, both adorable, and often violent.

The game features a relatively simple story that feels like it was ripped right out of a classic book of fairy tales. Olle wakes up one night, frightened by nightmares, only to find his sister missing. Deciding to follow her trail into the forest, Olle eventually finds his sister, and the two set off for adventure, meeting magical creatures like the Frog King and gnomes along the way. Ultimately, Lillemor gets kidnapped by a troll, and Olle has to figure out how he can get his sister back. There’s nothing particularly complicated going on with the game’s story, with the highlight being the game’s general atmosphere throughout its environments.

"The game features a relatively simple story that feels like it was ripped right out of a classic book of fairy tales."

Despite the simplicity of its story, I’d argue that Bramble: The Mountain King suffers from some poor pacing, especially at the beginning. While it starts off in a fantastic way, building its thick atmosphere as you travel through a dark forest finding small people made out of acorns and sticks all over the place, there isn’t really much of a pay off before you find your sister. Once you find her, you’re going to be going through the rest of the game’s tutorials in a couple of bright and cheerful levels before quickly being thrown back into a dark world that’s seemingly out to get you at every corner.

The constant zigzagging doesn’t really make for a particularly engaging game. The title only really starts getting somewhat interesting once the plot finally kicks off after your sister is kidnapped, pitting you against some hyper-violent monsters in some gory levels.

Bramble: The Mountain King doesn’t really try to get too ambitious with its gameplay. It’s simple enough to play, with standard movement, the ability to sprint, crouch and jump, an interaction button, and a way to fight back against some of the more violent denizens of the forest. The gameplay never really gets too complicated. You’re often just simply platforming your way through the game’s various levels, avoiding deadly bear traps and other sharp objects along the way, and sometimes, you’ll be trying to find gnomes to help you open doors along your adventure.

"The gameplay never really gets too complicated."

The gnomes in particular seem quite influenced by mechanics from Nintendo’s Pikmin franchise, though it is worth noting that Bramble: The Mountain King never really gets too deep with its mechanics. You’re not going to have to figure out complicated ways to use different kinds of gnomes to approach a puzzle. Rather, you’ll need a set number of gnomes to open specific doors to continue, and it’s getting those gnomes that acts as the main puzzles of the game.

You’ll find gnomes in all kinds of situations through the game’s dark environments, and you’ll have to do different things to sway them to join your cause. The introductory sequence of Bramble: The Mountain King even gives you a short tutorial on how you’d go about recruiting gnomes and use them to open a massive door. Once the game’s main plot kicks off, gnomes are going to be in much more precarious positions, often needing your help to hopefully save their lives.

These small bouts of puzzle solving are often divided up with simple platforming segments that, while never really too difficult, give you a good chance to stop and experience the game’s gorgeous visuals. The other way your gnome-saving action is going to get interrupted is if you find yourself in one of the game’s many boss fights. An early one in particular is, once again, quite easy, but when it comes to sheer atmosphere and visuals, is an absolute treat.

As you might expect from a game that proudly touts that it features inspiration from Nordic folktales, Bramble: The Mountain King has a great variety of creatures that you’ll meet, befriend, and sometimes even fight. Creatures range from the troll that kicks off the plot by kidnapping your sister, to adorable little gnomes, and even King Frog, who saves your life in an early part of the game and considers you a true friend.

All of this is punctuated by gorgeous graphics that really bring the game’s various environments, from the forests, to bridges over cliffs, and even to the downright gory house full of animal carcasses, to life. Visually, Bramble: The Mountain King mixes photo-realism in its environments with a more cartoonish look to its various creatures, including protagonists Olle and Lillemor. This gives the game quite a unique look, making its various tableaus look like they’ve been ripped directly out of a musty old storybook.

"These small bouts of puzzle solving are often divided up with simple platforming segments"

On the audio side of things, however, Bramble: The Mountain King feels like a bit of a let down. While some of the more atmospheric sounds are fine, and the narrator does a great job of explaining what’s happening without giving too many details away, something about how some of the game’s creatures—and especially the gnomes—sound feels quite grating. Their child-like giggles and cries initially seem fine, but then you learn quite quickly that they’ll make these sounds constantly until you finally recruit them, and trust me when I say that this can get quite annoying, quite fast.

As an experience, Bramble: The Mountain King might not be everyone’s cup of tea. The game features gameplay that is overly simplistic, and none of the core game design really meshes with its overarching themes or atmosphere. The game is almost entirely reliant on its audio-visual presentation, with the gameplay just being a rather simple excuse to try and get you from scene to scene. What I’m trying to get at is that there’s surprisingly very little “game” in Bramble: The Mountain King.

However, if you can set aside your expectations of a “game”, you might find Bramble: The Mountain King to be quite charming. It isn’t a particularly long game, and while it has a number of gameplay mechanics, none of them get particularly deep. I don’t think I’ll ever find myself revisiting Bramble: The Mountain King years down the line, however, since there really isn’t all that much to revisit. The story is simple, and while the visuals and atmosphere are all great, there’s nothing in its gameplay that draws me in.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

Today, we will be putting a spotlight on developer Dimfrost’s upcoming Bramble: The Mountain King, which looks like a throwback to the adventure games of the past. Of course, there’s a lot more to it as well, and it’s a combination of those factors that make Bramble: The Mountain King a game that’s worth keeping your eyes open for since it could easily be one of the dark horses of the near future.

Dimfrost is a small indie studio that started out in 2017, and now the studio has become a part of the Zordix conglomerate which also includes other AA developers like Reply Game Studios which recently released Soulstice to great critical acclaim. Dimfrost has previously worked on a VR game by the name of A Writer And His Daughter, which touches on the same themes of love and companionship that Bramble: The Mountain King seems to be trying to tackle as well. That said, it’s easily a much bigger project than what came before – and we can’t help but be excited about it.

Bramble: The Mountain King is set against the backdrop of a fantastical world that’s heavily inspired by the dark fables. You assume the role of Olle, a young and impressionable boy who embarks on a quest to save his sister. Considering the inspirations, it’s rather obvious that the game also features entities with dark powers that haunt these places, and Olle will obviously have to find a way to defeat these entities to save his sister from their clutches.

Sure, that might be a pretty simplistic setup when compared to contemporaries of the genre – but it’s a really good framework to put the spotlight on these seemingly lovable characters as they overcome insurmountable odds in these hostile lands. It’s possible that the narrative might dive deeper into the lore aspects and evolve into a story that’s much bigger than what we know at the moment. But either way, we are hoping Dimfrost will be able to tell a compelling story, one that puts the spotlight on these characters. If it manages to do just that, the story would end up being one that players will remember long after the credits roll.

Over on the gameplay front, Bramble: The Mountain King is presented through a fixed camera perspective that mostly functions at a bird-eye view angle. Olle must use his wits to explore the game’s fantastical world and try to overcome any obstacles that lie between him and his goal – and that can range from literal obstructions that need to be cleared out to enemies that require to be dodged or defeated to anything and everything in between these two extremes. In that regard, it’s like Little Nightmares since it also tries to mix adventure and horror with its brand of gameplay.

While there’s going to be the main path that will guide you towards your goal, Olle would also have the ability to veer away from that beaten path at times in search of additional rewards and secrets that will help you in better understanding this twisted world, its history, and the many legends about the beasts that inhabit these lands. The journey will also be punctuated by boss fights against gigantic creatures, and you will have to use your wits in these tense situations to get to the other side – and we can’t wait to see what the game has in store for the final release.

The levels themselves also have a great deal of variety amongst them, and there’s also the sheer sense of scale that you feel with you being just a tiny creature in a gargantuan land. One moment you’re crawling your way through tree roots, and the next you are trying to find your way through a dimly lit underground area by manipulating blocks and platforms to chart out a safe path. The level design seems to have a sense of flow to them, and while there are plenty of puzzles that will have to be solved to continue – they seem to be striking the perfect balance in terms of complexity and difficulty so as to not interrupt the rhythmic nature of the gameplay.

And we’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the visuals. Suffice to say, Bramble: The Mountain King looks absolutely gorgeous in terms of visual fidelity – and a lot of that can be credited to the stunning art direction on display. Dimfrost paints a beautiful world that has a grand sense of scale, and everything from the distinct characters you will meet throughout your journey to the varied environments have tons of personality within them – and we can’t wait to explore them in all their glory. Of course, the fact that the developer is using Unreal Engine for this project also helps that case by a significant margin – and the game boasts high-quality textures, smooth animations along with plenty of post-processing effects that all culminate to give the game a clean and crisp look – which is obviously essential for a game like this that relies on the visuals to deliver a captivating experience.

Speaking about release dates, Dimfrost hasn’t provided a firm release date just yet. Bramble: The Mountain King has been in development for a couple of years now, and while the game was previously scheduled to be released in 2022 – it has now been pushed over to 2023. Considering the fact that we already have access to a free demo to try out the game, it seems fair to assume that the game will most likely be able to meet its updated release date with relative ease. As always, it’s advisable to let the development run its due course instead of hurrying to meet a release date for the best results.

In so many ways, Bramble: The Mountain King reminds of adventure games like ICO among others – primarily because it’s taking players through a wondrous ride through a fantastical world coupled with a simple but effective story and powerful storytelling. Dimfrost seems to have a great sense of how to craft experiences that have a sense of flow to them, and one that encourages its players to take the time to smell the roses, and these types of games seem to be becoming the next big thing – as evident by the popularity of the recently released Stray. Hopefully, Bramble: The Mountain King is able to live up to its potential.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.