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https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/may/07/video-games-capture-happy-sad-spirit-of-tove-janssons-moomins>
"Sleepy, happy-sad, and imbued with the mildest peril, Tove Jansson’s
Moomin
stories may seem an unlikely fit for the action-heavy medium of video games.
Rather than embark on swashbuckling adventures, these milk-white, hippo-esque
creatures prefer to potter about Moominvalley, only venturing further if the
weather conditions are just right.
Yet a small Norwegian video game studio, Hyper Games, is now on its second
exquisitely charming Jansson adaptation. The first, 2024’s
Snufkin: Melody of
Moomin Valley, put players in control of the wily free spirit, Snufkin, as he
dismantled overly ordered nature parks (and evaded authority-loving wardens).
The latest,
Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth, sees young Moomintroll wake up at
night in the dead of winter. With his parents still hibernating, the creature
is all alone, thrust into a cold and unfamiliar world.
On this lonesome journey, Moomintroll must reckon with the idea that his
snoozing parents won’t be around for ever. “[It is] a brush with mortality,”
says lead writer David Skaufjord, who sees the premise, an adaptation of the
1957 novel
Moominland Midwinter, as emblematic of a franchise which dares to
challenge its younger audience with loss, grief, melancholy and nostalgia.
“Children’s television can be soft-handed,” he says. “The Moomin stories
aren’t.”
In the first 20 minutes of the game, the freezing temperatures claim the life
of a squirrel. But Too-Ticky, the androgynous woman who lives by herself in
Moominpappa’s boathouse, takes a philosophical outlook on the animal’s passing.
“Death is a part of life,” she says serenely. “Something is always changing.”
So much of Jansson’s work, Moomin or otherwise, finds meaning in life’s
transitions: humid summer to crisp autumn; sweltering afternoon to cool
evening; the still moments that arrive after a storm. Jansson, a writer,
illustrator, and political cartoonist, spent many years on the small islands
scattered across the Gulf of Finland, folding these experiences into
crystalline descriptions and illustrations of the natural world, which the
Moomins live in harmony with.
Though Hyper Games is based in Norway rather than Jansson’s Finland, its Scandi
developers were able to draw on a similarly deep relationship with nature. “We
have all grown up in a country where there’s six to seven months of winter,”
says Skaufjord, “and if you don’t learn to enjoy winter, you basically have a
bad time half of the year.” Like these game makers, the summer-loving
Moomintroll must undergo his own snowy acclimatisation: in doing so, there is a
lesson for him and players – of adapting to, and accepting, one’s new
circumstances.
But
Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth makes enjoying such a chilly time of the
year easy: you can fling snowballs and create pathways in knee-high drifts.
Even shovelling snow is fun, accompanied by satisfying audio-visual puffs of
powdery white stuff. There are many more light and breezy interactions like
this, carefully calibrated for both non-gamers and young children alike.
Viewing the action from an isometric perspective means players need not worry
about swivelling a camera as they move Moomintroll about. “We want this to be a
game that anyone can play,” says director Kristoffer Jetmundsen."
I can confirm that these games are excellent and very much in the spirit of the
original works. Recommended.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
