Bramble: The Mountain King is a dark fairytale-like Puzzle Platformer (similar to Little Nightmares), developed by Dimfrost Studio and published by Merge Games.
Inspired by Nordic folklore, the game follows a young boy named Olle who, one night, follows his sister, Lillemor, into a mystical land full of wonder and fantastical creatures. However, their adventure soon takes a dark turn, as Lillemor is soon captured by a troll. Olle braves dark beings and other perils in his quest to save his sister from whatever vile fate that awaits her.
The game was released on April 27, 2023 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
Unrelated to Mountain King.
The game provides the following tropes:
- All for Nothing: The story of King Nils has the king commit many atrocities in search of a flower that would cure his son, Ulrik, of a severe illness. When he finally finds the flower and cures his son, assassins kill Ulrik in his bed the next day, fully breaking Nils of whatever sanity he had left. And it only gets worse from there...
- Antagonist Title: The game's title refers to the Bramble, a malevolent and seemingly sentient plant-like entity, and King Nils, the titular Mountain King.
- Apocalyptic Log: Olle finds the diary of a young woman in a ruined village filled with cannibalistic living dead detailing the slow deterioration of the settlement via a cursed plague spread by Pesta, the Maid of Death.
- Bad Boss: When we are first introduced to King Nils before the Final Boss fight, he causally skewers the troll who had brought him his evening meal and eats him as though he were a part of it.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Näcken lacks any noticeable genitals, which can be seen when he's attempting to kill Olle with sound waves from his violin.
- Beat the Curse Out of Him: The final boss battle against King Nils isn't really against the Mountain King himself, but against the Bramble sprouting from his body. Once the player destroys all of the blossoms, King Nils regains enough clarity to destroy the Bramble himself.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Both Lemus and the Frog King rescue Olle in times of need because he went out of his way to befriend them. This is especially true for Lemus, who aids Olle no less than four times throughout his journey.
- Big Brother Instinct: Inverted. While Olle is the younger sibling, the game revolves around his journey to find and rescue his older sister Lillemor.
- Big Good: Tuva, the witch who grants Olle's magical stone the ability to repel the Bramble and directs him to the mountain in the distance in order to find his sister. She's also colored Light Is Good in contrast to the marshland witch's Dark Is Evil. Tuva additionally is heavily implied to be the last witch whom King Nils came to find the Bramble for Ulrik then rose a mountain over the king to keep the Bramble from escaping according to the 2nd Mountain King storybook. She also revives Olle Back from the Dead after he dies following the final battle with King Nils and saving Lillemor.
- Blood Magic: The magic used by The Skogsrå. She draws power from the still beating hearts of her victims, which she can use to shield herself and bombard Olle with a range of blood-based attacks. Beating her requires Olle to destroy the corpses around her grove to cut her off from her source of power, rendering her vulnerable.
- Blood-Spattered Innocents: After killing the Skogsrå, Olle spends the remainder of the game soaked in her blood until he changes into Ulrik's clothes before the final battle.
- Body Horror: The Skogsrå has a gaping hole on her back through which one can see her beating heart.
- Botanical Abomination: The titular Bramble is eventually revealed to be this, being more than a mere flower. It's unclear if it got this way through its connections to witches and their magic or if it's really something else far more terrible.
- Children Forced to Kill: Olle is forced to kill the Skogsrå in order to leave the forest. Showing her mercy isn't an option, because if he tries to do so she kills him on the spot. This act horrifies Olle and causes him to Stress Vomit while he's trying to process what he's done.
- Dark Fantasy: The game is based upon Nordic fables and folktales. It revolves around two young siblings, Olle and Lillemor, who sneak out to explore an enchanted forest filled with magical creatures. It initially starts out as a whimsical adventure, but things take an increasingly dark and horrifying turn when Lillemor is kidnapped by a troll and Olle learns of a curse over the land. Olle has to avoid or fight numerous monsters and malevolent beings to save Lillemor. The backstory reveals that humans were the cause of much of the problems and while it has an uplifting ending, Olle has to go through hell to achieve it.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Lemus, the giant. He looks a bit scary but he’s always friendly and helps Olle on his quest. He also rescues Olle and Lillemor from the collapsing mountain.
- Dark Reprise: The vocal Swedish song that plays during the daytime forest/riding hedgehog scene early on in the game receives a more slower, somber and haunting version that's heard while Olle is wandering through the burnt forest and during the cutscene where he discovers the destroyed village.
- Deal with the Devil: This is how a witch gets their power in exchange for sacrificing their baby. While it's never explained what exactly grants the witches their power, the book found in the swamp hut paints an unsettling picture of demonic forces at play and includes a drawing of a Baphomet-like figure.
- Death of a Child:
- Nine-year-old Olle can be killed in a variety of gruesome ways. In the ending, he appears to die after defeating King Nils, but is restored to life by Tuva.
- A witch living in a swamp is known to sacrifice babies in exchange for power. Despite his best efforts, Olle gets there too late to stop her from drowning another infant.
- Driven to Suicide: Seems to be the case with the witch in the swamp who Olle tries to stop from sacrificing her infant. She is found hanged in a tree a few feet from the ritual site, apparently unable to live with herself after taking her baby's life.
- Dual Wielding: King Nils initially attacks Olle with a knife and fork, before switching to his sword and scepter (the latter which he uses as an impromptu mace).
- Due to the Dead: Olle is unable to save the witch's baby, but he makes sure to give the infant a proper burial so it won't become a dark soul.
- Evil Is Bigger: Most of the monsters are larger than humans. As a result of being the primary host of the Bramble, King Nils is utterly gigantic. He even towers over the trolls who tower over Olle.
- Evil Old Folks: The Pesta demon takes the form of an elderly woman clad in black and gleefully spreads plagues wherever she goes.
- The Fair Folk: A number of magical creatures appear throughout the game, each with their own different dispositions. On the friendly side of the spectrum, we have the gnomes, Lemus the stone giant, and the Lyktgubbe, all of whom happily aid Olle on his adventure. Then there are the trolls and the Skogsrå who are far more malevolent.
- Foreshadowing:
- Two cases. The first is the story book that Olle reads at the beginning of the game. Describing a girl who sneaks off into the woods to find adventure and have fun but when the woods turn dark she ends up trapped in the woods. Olle's sister ends up trapped in the woods after getting caught by a troll.
- The Narrator also mentions that the Gnomes are surprised by Olle and Lillemor as they are the first visitors to the village that didn't want to eat the Gnomes. Giving players a little hint as to the horrors seen later.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Näcken and the Skogsrå are both completely naked, though the latter at least has moss growing over their privates.
- Gentle Giant: Lemus, an intimidating stone giant who is nonetheless very kind and caring to anyone willing to look past his scary face and befriend him.
- The Grim Reaper: Pesta is a demon that appears as a black-clad hag with a rake. The Plague-stricken village was said to have been haunted by her before the plague left it a wasteland where the undead outnumber the living, and she appears to try and kill Olle as he rows away from it.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: During the final boss battle with King Nils, it is possible for Olle to be cut in half if he fails to jump on time.
- Headturning Beauty: The shape used by the Skogsrå to lure men to their doom into the depths of the forest.
- Identical Stranger: The first storybook detailing the tale of the Mountain King and portraits in King Nils' castle show that Olle is this to Ulrik.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: Olle and Lillemor shrink down to Lilliputian size at the start of the game shortly before entering the gnome village. The effects apparently wear off not long after Olle enters the swamp area.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- Näcken's relentless pursuit of Olle causes both of them to fall from a high waterfall. Olle fortunately survives, but it is shown that Näcken fell directly into the rocks below, breaking his back and ultimately killing him.
- The troll that captures Lillemor is skewered by King Nils and eaten moments after feeding her to the king.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Olle is a timid yet kind young boy whose primary means of defense against his adversaries is a magical light stone. Hewever, when the Skogsrå attempts to deceive him with Lillemor's form a second time, Olle transforms the stone into a Hard Light sword with which he uses to stun and ultimately kill her.
- Light 'em Up: After receiving a power-up from Tuva, Olle's magic stone becomes capable of emitting blasts of light that are particularly effective against monsters like the Kärrhäxan, Pesta, and the Bramble itself. During the battle against the Skogsrå, Olle manages to create a sword of light with it.
- Magic Music: Näcken plays forbidden melodies that cause those who hear it to dance uncontrollably until they die of exhaustion. He can also unleash sound waves strong enough to kill a shrunken Olle.
- Mature Work, Child Protagonists: The player character is nine-year-old Olle, while the secondary protagonist, his sister Lillemor, is eleven. The game delves into the darker side of Nordic folklore, with Olle being threatened by horrifying creatures and entities. There's also quite a bit of blood, gore, and other disturbing content, and Olle can die in quite some nasty ways.
- Monster-Shaped Mountain: Defeating the Skogsrå transforms her into a mossy mound of earth shaped like her body, with still-intact horns embedded in its "head".
- Motivation on a Stick: The riding hedgehog is directed via an earthworm dangled in front of its gaping mouth.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Olle's nightmare at the very beginning of the game. Audio is only heard with no visuals of any kind before he wakes up.
- Offscreen Teleportation: The giant Lemus is capable of inexplicably turning up wherever he wishes, which is made all the more unusual by his total lack of a lower body. He even shows up in the depths of the Mountain King's castle to rescue Olle and Lillemor at the very end of the game.
- Our Trolls Are Different: The trolls are designed not unlike John Bauer's illustrations; vaguely humanoid with large, pointed ears, tails and massive noses. They are massive compared to Olle (though it's vague if this is because they are normally massive or if Olle was shrunken down) and they live to serve the Mountain King, gathering food for him as the bramble overtakes the land.
- Our Witches Are Different: Kärrhäxan is the boss of the Swamplands; at first confused for a scarecrow, it's a Humanoid Abomination dressed in women's clothes, wears an animal skull over its own flayed-looking face with piercing white eyes.
- Our Zombies Are Different: All that's left of the Fishing Village are corpses and Draugr, people who were afflicted with the plague by Pesta and came back as undead. They are portrayed as typical pop-culture zombies — mindless hordes that eat human flesh — with signs of survivors boarding themselves up in their homes to keep them at bay. The bramble is visibly growing on and through them, accounting for much of the shambling. They can kill Olle by pulling him into a hug to pierce him with the thorns.
- Papa Wolf: A dark example. King Nils dearly loved his only son, Ulrik, and he ravaged his Kingdom and killed many innocent people in his mad search for a mystical flower that would have cured Ulrik of his illness. When Olle weakens the Bramble controlling Nils, the now lucid King sees Olle and is reminded of his beloved son, and gathers enough strength to finally destroy the Bramble and end its curse.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: Fittingly enough for the game's title, the battle against King Nils (the titular Mountain King) has a cover of Edvard Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" playing in the background, the music getting faster with each phase of the battle. The song heard as Olle approaches the riding hedgehog is a 17th century Swedish summer hymn, Den Blomstertid nu kommer.
- Scenery Porn: The game is visually stunning in its' detailed photorealistic environments, both bright and cheery or dark and sinister.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: After Nils became corrupted by the Bramble, the Witch who gave Nils the flower to cure his son magically erects a dome of rock around the latter's castle to prevent him and the Bramble from wreaking havoc across the land. This later becomes a Leaking Can of Evil, as the Bramble's vines have managed to bore their way out of its prison and are starting to spread.
- Stress Vomit: Poor Olle gets this at the outskirts of the ruined village (though it's entirely understandable considering what happened a few in-game minutes ago).
- Taken for Granite: Just like in classic folklore, trolls have an aversion to sunlight, turning into petrified statues when exposed to it. The one that attempts to eat Olle near the start of the game does so at night, but Olle's magical stone protects him by emitting a blast of light of such force that it works to the same effect.
- Time Abyss: The Lyktgubbe, keeper of stories who is described as being nearly as old as the world itself.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Invoked with the Murderer achievement, which is unlocked by stabbing the Skogsrå in the head 100 times in the fights final Quick Time Event.
- Villains Want Mercy: After Olle stabs the Skogsrå's exposed heart, she weakly tries to crawl away from him, pitifully shaking her head as if to beg Olle not to kill her.
- Violence Is Disturbing: After Olle brutally kills the Skogsrå, he's mortified by the bloody violence he's committed, and imagines Tuva asking him what he's done. Olle himself later expresses regret for this.
- Was Once a Man:
- Näcken was originally an ordinary man from an unknown village who played his violin, and was greatly bullied and beaten by the village folk because of it (save for a girl whom he fell in love with). One day, he could no longer handle the relentless beatings, and played forbidden melodies that he used to forced the villagers to dance to death. However, his act of revenge also killed the girl he was in love with, and driven by despair, he now lives isolated in a lake where he continues to play his violin in order to lure any unfortunate victims to their deaths.
- Kings Nils was a mortal king before he fused with the Bramble, turning him into the titanic Mountain King.
- Wicked Witch: One resides in the marshlands who sacrifices children to create dark souls.
- Witch Hunt: Olle finds a village where men began going missing after being lured into the woods by a mysterious, beautiful, dark-haired woman. Consequently, the villagers began rounding up, interrogating, torturing and executing the dark-haired women of the village, believing one of them responsible. However, the disappearances continued. The men were actually lured and killed by a Skogsrå, a shapeshifting being who can take the form of a beautiful woman.
- You Remind Me of X: After Olle frees him from the Bramble, King Nils sees Olle clearly and he strongly reminds him of his late son; Olle does bear a strong resemblance to the prince, especially wearing his clothes. This causes Nils to have a Heel Realization and he destroys the source of the Bramble once and for all.
