Review | Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth - A New God for Triflers
Mascots are lower-case “g” gods. Walk around a major city and see them hanging from bags. On sight their adorableness provides a sort of warmth to our consumerist soul. Is being kawaii enough to enter the cultural zeitgeist? Snoopy, Doraemon, Hello Kitty and friends, Pikachu, and let us not forget Tove Jansson’s Moomins. There are others, but those have gone the way of the plushie left to be caressed by tires on the asphalt — R.I.P. Mickey Mouse.
Hyper Games’ Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth is worthy of devotion. Playing the game is akin to an act of worship in the valley of cuteness. More of an interactive picture book than a traditional score-chaser, it is an inversion of Bernard Suits’ famed definition of a game: “the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.” In this game the attempt feels necessary for the soul afflicted by the maladies of contemporary life. Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth looms on the screen with more grandiosity than the excellent Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley. It is also more dynamic and action-oriented than its predecessor. Our protagonist Moomintroll runs around with hope.
This very funny game is about discovery and interaction with a noticeable absence of violence as a driver of action. Maybe some might find this boring, but they are just acculturated, raised in a cult of bloodlust. Jansson's iconic creatures still inhabit a world as dangerous and glorious as our own. It is, however, a realm whose creator and inhabitants alike do not cherish brutality.
In this world The Lady of the Cold demands respect through sheltering and hibernation. Poor Moomintroll is unable to sleep through this particularly bitter winter. Luckily, even in the harshest of conditions there is still much life and movement in the world. For his inability to slumber, Moomintroll is tasked with being Moominvalley’s saviour. He must become part community organizer, part matchmaker, and part groundskeeper. Help the exacting Mrs. Fillyjonk and her coddled children. Provide a warm place for The Ancestor (the cutest of all gods). Engage in icy combat against Little My. Endure unsolicited advice hurled at the speed of notes spitting out of a tuba from a Hemulen. Moomintroll will bare it all for our entertainment. This saviour is so eager and humble they are naked.
Though set in a hellish winter, Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth is, as the title professes, the warmest of games. Like a snug blanket you share with your loved ones on the coldest day, it provides more than just comfort. Its simple premise and relaxing gameplay are an antipode to our times. It captures the spirit of a seasonal transition. It creates a melancholic world where frosty winds gleefully pierce and with cold so chilly it burns the skin, yet despite this happiness exists. Much of this is the result of the game’s four core pillars: art style, music, narrative, and most importantly its source material.
Jansson’s first two Moomin books, The Moomins and the Great Flood and Comet in Moominland are some of the most harrowing and existential of texts within the realm of children’s literature. Deeply humanist, philosophical, and with cute creatures as our guides, Jansson incorporates parts of her experience during the Second World War in Finland by retelling aspects of the human condition at its rawest. Incoming doom from above in Comet in Moominland feels like a millenarian prophesy. Increasingly these books also feel like statements on our weakness and inability to live without creating suffering for others and destroying the natural world, of which we forget we are a part.
In the Moomins and the Great Flood, environmental calamity makes the inhabitants strangers in their own land. Serious stuff yet eerily readable. A recent anthology by a collective of cartoonists living in Tehran, I Won't Pretend These Missiles Are Stars: Life in Iran During the 12-Day War, speaks to Jansson’s gloom in a modern context. Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth does not ignore this looming gloom nor the perils of the coldest seasons. Our adorable hero in this winter drawing masterclass engages in family reunification and environmental stewardship in chin-high snow.
Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth is adapted from the lighter sixth book in the series, Moominland Midwinter. In the book, as in the game, we explore Moominland in a season where our protagonist is usually asleep for good reason — escaping the brutality and insouciance of The Lady of the Cold. The tenderheartedness of Hyper Games’ adaptation and how its gameplay focuses on helping those in hardship is a welcome contrast to the prevailing images projected of our world. Yet, this is not indulgent escapism. The game is a place/space of possibility. It asks, “What if we stopped shitposting or doomscrolling and helped Sorry-oo in the frozen forest?”
At heart, Moomin stories like Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth are works of quasi-utopian pastoralism where coexistence between different creatures and nature is possible. Participating in this turns the player into Suits’ definition of a trifler: one that chooses to ignore goals dictated by a game and instead frolics in its architecture. You know the rules, how to progress the story, and how to traverse from location to location. Nevertheless, the experience of playing this game is not confined to the goals presented but instead quickly transforms into chilling in Moominland as hard as possible. Enjoy the music, catch a glimpse of the vistas, nod along to the quirky characters. Its cuteness puts us at ease.
On this adventure, a sparse soundtrack mostly composed of ambient music ushers us from location to location. Snarly dialogue by the cutest of creatures keeps us on our toes — they have bite, these creatures of the forest. Fillyjonk for one will never stop ridiculing the Moominhouse’s décor. “What kind of family leaves their bed in the middle of the drawing room?” One which has nothing to hide, but everything to give, even the image of them sleeping with their mouths open for all to see.
Moomintroll also becomes a trifler. With the controller in hand, we guide him on his caretaker and community organizer journey. No domination or mastery of others is wanted nor rewarded. Productivity is thrown out the Moominhouse window. Simply embrace the pleasant northern winds blowing from yonder. But please make use of that borrowed scarf from Too-Ticky and the mittens from The Ancestor. It is cold ass hell outside.
Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth was played on Nintendo Switch 2 with a code provided by the publisher.
