Röki – Nindie Spotlight – A Journey Through Scandinavian Folklore
Röki is an incredible point and click adventure game based on Scandinavian folklore and mythology. In the game, you play as Tove, an adventurous young girl living in the forest with her father and her younger brother, Lars. Since their mother died before the events of the game take place, Tove is in charge of taking care of her brother. One dark night, Lars is captured by a gigantic, mysterious beast, and Tove takes it upon herself to get him back.
I am The Never Yak, and this is today’s Nindie Spotlight: Röki.
Röki
The game is spread across three amazing chapters and takes around 11 hours to complete. The first chapter is set in your home and acts as a sort of tutorial to Röki‘s controls and mechanics. The second chapter is where you will be spending the most time, and it is undoubtedly the best.
It is set in a mysterious forest, where the balance between characters and their stories, puzzles, and exploration is just perfect. The final chapter is set in an old, frosty castle, where the player can switch between Tove and another character to solve puzzles. I won’t say who the other character is, as it’s a bit of a spoiler.
A few years ago, I became absolutely obsessed with Scandinavian mythology, and I spent hours researching myths and even planned out a comic with my friend. Playing Röki recently reminded me of that old passion, and it felt really good to revisit it. Although, to my knowledge, not every creature in the game is a real figure from mythology, their myths, design, and dialogue were constructed in such an excellent way that you could easily imagine that they were.
Story, Art, and Controls
I think the best thing about Röki is the fantastic story it has to tell. Throughout the game, you see flashes of Lars’ story and how he makes friends with the beast that kidnapped him. Dark backstories mirror each character, as you learn more and more about the world you’ve been sucked into. Dream sequences throughout the second chapter allow Tove to connect with forgotten memories of her mother’s death. Overall, Röki just radiates with that dark sense of mystery that drew me into mythology in the first place.
Röki also has gorgeous art work and character designs. Each area was so incredible to look at, I wanted to take screenshots every time I found somewhere new, and I think I did. Tove also carries a journal with her, where you can find a map for each chapter, entries on each area, and small collectible items that can be found everywhere in the game. These are very difficult to spot, and I think I only found about half of them.
The controls of Röki also work super well. In some point and click games, I find controls are quite fiddly, and simple things, like combining items in the inventory, can be a pain. But in this game, everything works very well. You can also highlight all the items you can interact with in an area by pressing down on the left joystick. This way you don’t miss an item because you think it’s part of the background, or anything else like that.
Röki is an awesome game. I’d recommend it for anyone with a love of art, stories, characters, mythology, music, animation, or just a general love of video games. Everything in the game functions excellently, and I didn’t find any problems whatsoever. The puzzles got pretty tricky in some places, but with enough time and effort, they’re definitely all solvable. I’m really glad I found Röki, and I hope you will enjoy it, too.
There is your Nindie Spotlight on Röki. Check back again next time for a look into another great Nindie title. What are some of your favorite Indie games? Let us know in the comments below! Thank you for visiting Nintendo Link. Happy gaming, everyone.
