Animated horror is beautiful: Bye Sweet Carole review

The story of a girl Lana, who is looking for her friend and, as a result, can transform into a rabbit and tries to survive and deal with everything mysterious in a world created by Disney animators, left no one indifferent. Little Sewing Machine Studio managed to create a game that gives you a sense of a magical, creepy, and incredibly stylish journey at the same time. And that's why gg editorial team couldn't pass it up and took Bye Sweet Carole for review .

Here's a quick recap:

• Plot: a spooky fairy tale that came to life
• Gameplay: horror, puzzles and platforming
• Technical condition of the rabbit hole
• How Bye Sweet Carole will be remembered
• Five things you need to know about Bye Sweet Carole

Synopsis.

Bye Sweet Carole is a 2D horror platformer in the style of old Disney cartoons. We play as Lana, who is looking for her missing best friend Carole. She disappeared from the creepy Bunny Hall orphanage. As she uncovers the mysteries, Lana finds herself trapped between the grim reality of the orphanage and a fantasy kingdom that is being destroyed by sinister forces.

The plot: a spooky fairy tale come to life

Bye Sweet Carole is set in the early 1900s during the women's suffrage movement in the UK. The story follows Lana Benton, a young girl who embarks on a dark and mysterious journey to find her missing best friend, Carole Simmons, by following the last known traces to the eerie orphanage Bunny Hall. As Lana delves deeper into the mystery, she enters a surreal and dangerous world where reality intertwines with the fantastical kingdom of Corolla, a place threatened by sinister forces.

The story throws in a lot of questions from the very beginning and tries to confuse the player, which makes it interesting to dive into this world. Illustration: Little Sewing Machine

The game's story unfolds in a beautiful hand-drawn, cinematic animation style inspired by classic cartoons, immersing players in a ghostly, whimsical atmosphere. Players travel through two worlds in this story: the harsh real-life orphanage and the magical but dangerous world of Corolla.

The story is filled with secrets, intrigue, and a sense of danger that is always haunting you. Thanks to these techniques and an atypical style, the developers managed to create a creepy fairy tale where you are really interested in the outcome of the events.

And even the topic of voting rights itself is revealed by beautiful visual and narrative features, and you believe that the authors sincerely wanted to convey this idea, not to appear "progressive". And you believe in such a story much more, and if you wanted to plunge into your childhood when you watched cartoons on TV, now you can do it with even greater effect, because you are already a participant in all this.

Gameplay: horror, puzzles, and platforming

Gameplay-wise, Bye Sweet Carole offers a combination of survival, puzzles, and platforming. The gameplay is based on exploration, solving puzzles related to the environment, and hiding from enemies, as direct combat is minimal. This encourages you to think cleverly, think your decisions several steps ahead, and use hiding to survive encounters with terrifying creatures such as colonies of tar rabbits and evil characters like Mr Keane and Velenia the owl.

During the hide-and-seek, you need to catch the right timings to hold your breath and not be discovered. Illustration: Little Sewing Machine

A special gameplay mechanic is Lana's ability to turn into a rabbit. This transformation allows you to access hidden passages and secret areas inaccessible in human form.

Often, locations require you to quickly change your form to find a solution to a problem. It can be either solving a puzzle or escaping from horrible creatures, because the rabbit form will make it easier to break away from the pursuit.

The game is constantly throwing up new challenges and gameplay innovations to keep you entertained. Illustration: Little Sewing Machine

In general, Bye Sweet Carole offers a fairly familiar platformer gameplay formula, but stands out due to its horror aesthetics in the style of 30s animation. And the interaction between the real and fantasy worlds with the ability to turn into a rabbit gave a rather pleasant gameplay experience. Finally, I would like to mention the puzzles. Some of them will make you stretch your brain, because to move forward, you need to turn on your ingenuity, travel between two worlds, and look for atypical solutions.

The technical state of the rabbit hole

But there were some problems with optimisation, and I can't really compliment the game here. Although Bye Sweet Carole maintains a stable 60 fps, this two-dimensional world has its own anomaly of bugs. Once the game just crashed, twice I caught a softlock and had to restart everything, and there were various other minor bugs that, although not spoiling the gameplay, would have been much better to play without. I want to believe that this is only a problem of the press version, and the developers will fix most of these shortcomings at the release, because now it is almost the only significant disadvantage of the game.

One of the softlocks is that the game stopped responding to my buttons and I had to restart it. Illustration: Little Sewing Machine

Fascinating visuals

As already mentioned, Bye Sweet Carole stands out for its visual style reminiscent of classic animated films from the early 20th century. This artistic approach turns the game into a moving picture, where warm nostalgia for old cartoons turns into eerie, unforgettable images thanks to the addition of horror elements.

The game skilfully combines fantasy and horror, with charming characters contrasting with the gloomy and ominous environment. Vivid but abandoned locations evoke a surreal, dreamlike feeling that enhances the psychological motifs of horror, making players feel enchanted and uneasy.

Visuals are Bye Sweet Carole's strongest feature. Illustrations: Little Sewing Machine

The soundtrack enhances the atmosphere

The soundtrack features a mix of eerie, atmospheric melodies that perfectly complement the game's dark narrative and vintage animation style. The music is carefully selected to evoke a sense of tension and melancholy, oscillating between ghostly melodies and ominous, unsettling tones that enhance the game's psychological horror elements.

The sounds are also well realised. The ambient noises of the creepy asylum and the fantastic Kingdom of Korolla, as well as the sound signals from various dangers, enhance the feeling of vulnerability and urgency. The careful selection of sounds, from the soft rustle of fabric to the distant echoes of sinister creatures, not only enhances the atmosphere of horror but also helps players to navigate and respond to threats. In general, the audio design in Bye Sweet Carole perfectly complements the visual and narrative components, creating an incredible atmosphere.

How Bye Sweet Carole will be remembered

Bye Sweet Carole will be remembered as a game that shows that even in such an oversaturated genre as platformers, you can always come up with something new. We take a visual style that almost no one else uses, allow the heroine to transform into a rabbit, introduce an interesting story, which platformers often neglect, and we have a game that immediately attracts gamers' eyes and makes them want to play it to understand what this strange rabbit world hides.

If you're tired of AAA games, Bye Sweet Carole will be a great way to diversify your gaming experience. Illustration: Little Sewing Machine

Five things you need to know about Bye Sweet Carole

• Bye Sweet Carole is a 2D indie horror-platformer game
• The game is the debut project of the young team Little Sewing Machine
• The game presents two interconnected worlds: a gloomy real-life orphanage and a surreal, magical Kingdom of Corolla.
• The art style is entirely hand-drawn, inspired by classic animated films from the early 20th century, which creates a visually atypical effect.
• The main character has a unique ability to turn into a rabbit, which makes the gameplay much more interesting.

4 reasons to buy Bye Sweet Carole

• Visual style inspired by early Disney classics
• Dual worlds: harsh reality meets surreal fantasy
• You need a break from the big AAA games in something more compact
• You always wanted to feel like a rabbit and run away from monsters

1 reason not to buy Bye Sweet Carole

• The technical condition of the game leaves much to be desired and may spoil your experience in some places

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