Many of the game’s puzzles are well balanced but mostly use the same formula throughout the 5-hour journey. However, the core gameplay experience revolves around solving environmental riddles while these cinematic death scenes exist to shock the player and move the disconcerting plot along. Watching Rose commit suicide by hesitantly placing her head into the shackles of a guillotine, or wrapping her neck in a thorn-riddled noose before leaping to her death was definitely shocking. Since the game presents death as part of Rose’s curse (and you will, in fact, die quite often), certain portions of the castle remain locked until the young prisoner offers her own blood as a sacrifice.
At other times the two must separate, instead solitarily navigating different areas of a puzzle room with the goal of rendezvousing later on. The castle itself is broken down into multiple puzzle-filled rooms that center on the tandem use of both characters in order to manipulate objects - having Rose infuse slabs of stone with blood so her giant can then move them to create stairs, for instance. Unlike Rose, her giant can lift and throw blood-infused objects, pass through thorns, and is unaffected by fall damage. Early on in the game, she’s met with a mysterious stone giant that offsets her shortcomings and the two can be switched between with a quick press of a shoulder button. She’s too weak to lift objects and will likely die if she falls beyond a short distance or comes in contact with the deadly thorns that have overtaken the castle’s interior. Rose is defined by her curse and limited by her overall frailty. This game-defining rule works both ways as well, as moving platforms and depressed floor switches can be strategically drained of their life force to become frozen in place. With blood symbolizing life here, things like elevators, switches, and even monsters need to be “alive” in order to function properly. Anything infused with blood appears in a vibrant shade of red, acting as a clear indicator of which objects can be interacted with by the player.
Its unique aesthetic and gameplay hook pair nicely with the game’s portrayal of blood as a life force, ultimately presenting a memorably gloomy tale that fans of the Brothers Grimm should no doubt enjoy.Īt its core, A Rose in the Twilight is a 2D puzzle platformer that shares Limbo’s (mostly) monochromatic environments, use of violence, and overall feel, along with the character swapping, teamwork reliance of something like Lost Vikings.Īs Rose, the aptly named prisoner, you’ll make use of her “curse of thorns” to withdraw and infuse blood into objects in the environment that are otherwise frozen in time. A Rose in the Twilight is a dejected and atmospheric fairy tale surrounding the unlikely pairing of a cursed girl and her stone giant companion, as they attempt to flee the castle in which she’s held captive.
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