Röki

Take a stroll through a deep, dark wood

- IAN EVENDEN

HERE’S A LOVELY THING: An adventure game based on Scandinavian folklore, Röki casts you as Tove, capable elder sister of little Lars, who won’t go to bed without his stuffed toy and a story. The story she chooses is one of four guardians, and it feels heavy with foreshadowing.

Lars is a playful boy, and sees trolls and monsters everywhere he roams, even if that’s just to the bathroom at night. The siblings have a father, who does little but sit in his chair and eat pickled herrings, and the family is still hurting from the loss of their mother. Early comments from Tove about her father not keeping her mother’s possessions show that this rankles just as much as having to cook eggs once again for dinner. It’s a picture of domestic unease, the leaky roof of the small timber cabin they live in as much a metaphor for family life as the license plate falling off their father’s beat-up car is for his condition.