Carimara is a wonderfully grubby looking game about talking to Norman-folklore inspired creeps and exercising ghosts with cards

Everybody loves a good fairytale, but I’m sure you can agree that some kind of twist on a Brothers Grimm story is a bit overdone by now, so how about a game based on folklore from Normandy? Carimara: Beneath the forlorn limbs is exactly that, a self described “short and creepy fairytale” that has a look about it where I can easily imagine walking around its world and think “cripes, it smells a bit around here, ‘ey?”

The gameplay concept is an odd one too: you are the titular Carimara, and your whole goal is to exorcise a ghost by answering questions using cards. How do you get cards? By finding different objects, people, and seemingly concepts around this messed up looking world. It could be something as simple as an acorn, or a creepy old lady, there’s lots of things you can find, but judging from the trailer the people you encounter might not care about them all.

Carimara’s Steam page is appropriately light on details, adding to its overall mysterious vibe, but it looks to me like you’ll have to see out the right cards to get certain responses – though no doubt this won’t be an easy task given that it all looks like everyone is a mean creep.

I’m very much into how Carimara is looking, according to developer Bastinus Rex “almost all textures and sounds are hand made and come from photos or record from the French countryside” which feels like a really nice touch. It has a lot of texture to it, really reminds me of Felvidek in some ways too. Plus it has a nice and short 30 to 60 minute run time, so I’m looking forward to this one dropping this coming May 22 – you can wishlist it on Steam here.