Little Briar Rose

A [i]spin[/i] on the story of Sleeping Beauty, it is more focused on the brave prince seeking to enter the bramble forest and undo the princess' curse than on the events before or after. By which I mean do not expect an epic showdown with a dragon or much in the way of actual narrative. Little Briar Rose is relatively short, it only took me 3-4 hours to complete it. Some of that was spent being stuck on the last few maze puzzles, along with the extremely tedious fishing minigame. As I understand it the game was originally for mobile phones before being ported to PC, [i]and it shows.[/i] While the stained-glass visuals are just stunning, and a big part of what caught my eye originally, the minigames/puzzles all feel very touchscreen oriented. This is especially noticeable in both the fishing and sewing minigames which ask for movement/response time that a mouse generally doesn't offer. The sewing minigame becomes faster and faster, with the little icons you pop not staying on screen long enough to both register and move your cursor to in a timely fashion - which wouldn't be as much of an issue on a touchscreen but I'd still call them out on it. The fishing minigame has the fish darting around [i]frantically[/i] and it becomes very difficult to keep the cursor on the fish; expect it to just wildly flail around so much that you lose the fish almost immediately at times. And you [i]will[/i] because you're required to fish at least 4-5 times. The rest of the game does not feature quick-paced gameplay, being your usual "in your own time" where you select from choices or giving items to someone. Well, not quite. There [i]is[/i] a cooking minigame but compared to the other two you can practically sleep through this one. The game's main gimmick which both caught me by surprise and I found rather amusing is that failing some objectives or upsetting people (usually at the same time) will cause the curse to transmogrify the prince into an inhabitant of the forest, requiring a [i]new[/i] prince to step forwards and announce his intention to break the curse. The little green fairy jovially going "oh boy another prince has has appeared!" because this apparently happens [i]all[/i] the time. Just a little existential horror for you in this delightful kid-friendly game. No, really, it's adorable and while a child might be hung up on some of the puzzles, or the need to talk to the NPCs repeatedly to move forwards, it's something a parent could play with their kid no problem. I include that mainly cause I sometimes see that question pop up for games like this. I do think it's rather short, but it's currently only $5 at full price so it's not that bad.