The Night of the Rabbit

Daedalic Entertainment have been busily making a name for themselves over the last few years, a name synonymous with point and click gaming. Their latest offering, The Night of the Rabbit, sees players take on the guise of Jerry Hazelnut, a schoolboy on summer vacation with dreams of one day becoming a magician. After being delivered a mysterious letter, Jerry sets out to follow its instructions and soon finds himself swept up in a world he didn’t know existed.

The story centres around Jerry’s journey, accompanied by the magician, the Marquis de Hoto (a humanoid white rabbit, reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland) as he learns the skills needed to become an apprentice magician. With Jerry promising his mother he’ll be back for dinner the only way he can learn his trade in time is to travel outside of it with the help of the magical portal tree. Enthralled by the idea of adventure he enters and discovers himself shrunk to the size of a mouse, a size small enough for him to enter and explore Mousewood. Mousewood is exactly what you’d expect. A colourful world filled with anthropomorphised animals who need assistance in some way or another. Only through learning the four spells can Jerry fulfill his destiny and return home so time is of the essence.

The hand-drawn style is gorgeous. Whether you’re full-sized or mouse-sized the items, characters and the world they inhabit are richly rendered in a way that can only be accomplished when the developer truly loves their game. Some of the actions are a little starkly animated but the overall look of the game helps to capture the feel of childlike imagination and wonder. Likewise the musical score reminds me of what can be done in this genre of game. Often I find long treks back and forth doing errands can be left with little or no ambient sound, but The Night of the Rabbit‘s musical stylings really bring the world to life. The graphics and sound really make a great pairing, allowing you to fully immerse yourself in the world of Mousewood.

The gameplay is as expected for an adventure game. Many residents need tasks completed to open new areas and these involve a mixture of fetch quests and puzzles. The magic spells are a great addition, however, making areas you’ve walked past many times accessible and adding a new dimension to some of the puzzle solving. Needless to say, there is a vast amount of dialogue, sometimes too much as it leaves you struggling to extract which bits were useful. There are multiple quest-lines open at one time and this can leave you a little confused as to what items and people are involved, but overall this just creates a more complex feel that shows despite the young feel of the game; this is definitely more for adult gamers. The one area of gameplay that comes up short has to be the help system. An early spell says it will give you assistance but when used merely summarises the story. Useful if you’ve been away and jumped back in, but not actually useful when you’re scratching your head through to the skull. A help option may not have been needed but for a severe lack of feedback when you’re attempting solutions. You may well end up trying to force a puzzle after being left clueless, only to discover you weren’t so clueless after all, you just didn’t recognise that you were being given help. A good example of this comes when talking to Anja about the boy she babysits, who is currently blocking a bridge. After a lengthy discussion you mutter under your breath that he needs a hobby. As Jerry is often commenting on things around him with no real deeper meaning I ignored this. Eventually, I solved the puzzle by suggesting music lessons to Anja, but with neither her nor the boy previously showing any interest in hobbies at all this seems like a bit of a stretch.

I also unfortunately have to mention some mechanical faults I experienced whilst reviewing this title. I did experience some occasional slowed framerates, an invisible Marquis, and the speech muting itself for no apparent reason. Additionally, despite the first two acts running otherwise flawlessly, act three was marred by constant runtime errors. It is worth mentioning that these problems occurred from an early release review code and I cannot verify whether these faults will have carried over to the full release.

Despite all its problems the feel of the game is still magical, and anyone with an inner child and a love of puzzles can find enjoyment here, as long as you’re prepared for some frustration… or to occasionally use a walkthrough. The intricacy of the puzzles means that even those who feel a “been there, done that” sensation about the genre will still be challenged.