Parsnip

Note: This review contains spoilers for Parsnip.

If you think the oddly-specific horror game subgenre of “cute game turns out to be dark” has been oversaturated by now, you’re not alone there. In a sea of games included in a massive itch.io bundle, Parsnip stood out to me mainly due to its appealing art style, to where I thought to download and play it along with its two follow-up games included in the bundle. Once I finally got around to playing Parsnip, I was legitimately unaware that it was one of those types of aforementioned horror games, and while it is effective on a first playthrough, the game is not without flaws.

Parsnip Bunner (full name Parsnip Muffin Coco Cornflakes Pancake Sandy Plum Toffee Banoffee Marzipan Charlie Bunt Bunter Chestnut Mooncake Bunner) wants to bake a cake for breakfast, however he is out of ingredients except for sugar. He doesn’t have the time to go to the shops today, so instead he asks his neighbors for help. This simple premise is very much in line with that of a children’s game and provides enough motivation for the player, however it quickly becomes apparent after you leave the house, or maybe even before, that something is not quite right.

A rabbit drinking and smoking is not the least child-friendly thing in this game.
(LeRose is on the left, Parsnip Bunner on the right.)

The game utilizes point-and-click gameplay, with a very minimalist interface. Left-clicking another character or object allows you to either look at or interact with them, with the interactions respectively being to talk to the character or pick up the object. Talking to or looking at other characters repeatedly under different conditions brings up different commentary from Parsnip and can reveal more about the setting, so it’s worth exploring this feature when possible. Holding down a right click tells Parsnip where to go, while pressing the space bar on a keyboard or the mouse’s scroll wheel brings up Parsnip’s inventory and to-do list. This minimalist gameplay makes for a more accessible game that ties in with the game’s outward appearance, helped by the tasks you are given being fairly simple in nature.

The art style is calming with attractive character designs and watercolor backgrounds that give it the appearance of something out of a children’s book. While not nearly as polished as something like Cuphead, given the difference in scope and resources, the hand-drawn animation is well-done and a nice touch to the overall style, with some characters such as Parsnip and LeRose remaining consistently on-model during more comparatively complex animations. Even though it’s evident early on that it’s not exactly a child-friendly game (LeRose drinks wine and smokes after all), the aesthetic is well-executed and all helps to catch the player off guard for when the game starts showing its true colors.

The storybook art direction is one of the game's strengths.

Partway through the game is when it starts to reveal its true nature as a horror game, when Parsnip comes across a house heavily occupied by a cultist. The lack of music makes the droning noise surrounding the house stand out more, which unnerved me the first time. The whole time you interact with the occupant of the house, Parsnip remains blissfully unaware of what his new neighbor’s true intentions are, making things even more unsettling on multiple levels. Throughout the world, there are three hidden yellow eye marks you can interact with, each of which tells the story of someone having come into contact with the play known as The King in Yellow, which has connections to the Cthulhu mythos. The subplot surrounding the character Squirrel Girl and her parents being away also begins to take a darker turn when she is taken by the cultist near the end of the game.

As part of the horror element, the game also has multiple endings depending on one’s final choice(s) on whether Parsnip shares his cake after he finally bakes it, however most end with death in some way. Thankfully though, it is possible to get a more hopeful ending if you’re careful with whom you share the cake.

Despite the eldritch lore present, perhaps the scariest thing about the game is Parnsip Bunner himself. On my first playthrough (of two), I didn’t dig too deeply into the dialogue and initially got the impression that he was a horror game character who acts like he’s in a children’s game, which can be effective enough on its own for the horror aspect. However, as the game goes on, Parsnip’s actions reveal him to be much creepier than initially let on, making him a very unlikeable character by the end. Regardless of how deeply the player digs into character interactions, it’s made evident through even the important interactions that Parsnip has a hard time taking “no” for an answer and will pester people until he gets what he wants, such as asking Squirrel Girl repeatedly about the chocolates she carries around. The creepiness ramps up when he’s around LeRose, which reaches its zenith when he insists on painting a picture to trade with her for candles even after she says no, with said painting depicting the two of them and heavily implied to be pornographic in nature (the game even pixelates the image).

You will learn to hate this rabbit. (Bell is on the left.)

Overall, the horror element is a bit tame compared to the likes of something like Doki Doki Literature Club, relying more on psychological horror rather than bloodshed or jumpscares (incidentally, psychological is my preferred type of horror). While it does have some bite to it on a first playthrough if you go in blind, it can lose its edge on a second playthrough.

While the game is effective at making the player feel unnerved and despise Parsnip Bunner, there are some issues that detract from the experience to varying degrees. The scrolling text speed can often be a little slow when it’s not done for effect, with no way to speed it up, so it can become a small chore when trying to get through dialogue you’ve already seen. While the puzzles are simple, completing them requires running back and forth all over the map, and Parsnip’s slow walking speed makes this a little tedious. To be fair, it is an appropriately small map to work with, though making Parsnip walk slightly faster might also have mitigated this.

The biggest complaint I have though relates to the grammar errors present in dialogue. Some noticeable spelling errors can be found at times, even in the King in Yellow text which is intentionally written to be a little off, though the worst offender is the inconsistency of apostrophes. Some words that are obviously meant to be “is” contractions don’t have an apostrophe, making them look like plurals, while there were at least couple instances where the apostrophe was instead inexplicably replaced with a question mark. At first this seems to be some sort of development limitation, but the fact that some words with apostrophes were rendered correctly can make one wonder how well the game was proof-read before it was published.

Though Parsnip has some shortcomings on a technical level, the visual design is its biggest strong-suit and it presents an interesting take on its particular subgenre. Though much tamer fare for a horror game, it can be downloaded for free if you’re curious about it. While I got it for free in the same bundle, the art book is also worth looking at since it features some behind-the-scenes info and expands on the characters and story.