Sometimes, a game pops up that just feels made for me. Usually it's a nostalgia thing, like my diehard obsession with Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era. Or maybe it just happens to speak to my exact blend of special interests the way vampire RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker does. But every so often, something amazing happens: I get both of those things at once.
That's what Bye Sweet Carole is. The side-scrolling survival horror adventure looks, sounds, and feels fresh from the desk of an old-school Disney or Don Bluth studio, inspired by classic hand-drawn animated children's movies such as Snow White or Beauty and the Beast. But as game director Chris Darril points out, it also draws upon the "ambiguous magic" and "hidden eerie feeling" those films held.
Blood magic
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If you recall being scared of Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty as a child, or the The Black Cauldron's Horned King making you outright sob (guilty as charged), Bye Sweet Carole is targeting that feeling exactly.
Protagonist Lara is a lonely orphan, residing in the formidable Bunny Hall finishing school for girls. The grand yet dusty, maze-like mansion is the stuff of gothic dreams, a walled-in fortress sitting in a lush, rabbit-ridden glen that gives the school its name. She's pining for her friend Carole, who left Bunny Hall some time ago, and the game starts with her receiving a letter from her.
I played Bye Sweet Carole on my Steam Deck – a bit of a risk, since it's playable but not verified on the device – and I'm extremely pleased with how well it runs. Controlling Lara through her side-scrolling world is simple, as are the basic mechanics of interacting with objects, running, and combining items in my inventory.
She does run rather slowly as she chases down the rabbit who stole her letter, her long, princess-like skirts proving a bit unwieldy (I understand now why Aurora chose sleep over final girl heroics). Deeper and deeper into the gardens she goes, hunted by a mysterious man in a tall black top hat before plummeting down, down, down into an abyss – and waking up in the middle of a lesson.
Displeased with Lara's inattentiveness, her shrewd teacher locks her in the basement to clean it as punishment. Here, I'm finally introduced to the game's puzzle elements. It's my first taste of Bye Sweet Carole's implementation of key factors among the best survival horror games; my broom allows me to sweep away cobwebs and clear the path forward, and I find multiple locked or otherwise barred objects to work out how to pick up.
I can jump up and over certain obstructions, like book cases or boxes, and can even push others around to help get a leg-up elsewhere, and when it comes time to shimmy along a narrow broken platform, a balancing minigame helps keep her from falling (I have to wrestle with the left joystick to keep an arrow centered). There's also some classic "turn on the generator" moments (in this case, a giant fire-powered electricity station) involving a need to experiment with sending the electrical current in different directions to open new pathways and retrieve story items.
A hero's tale
Bye Sweet Carole is nothing if not cinematic...
Most exciting, though, is when the stealth aspects come in. I don't expect there to be much in the way of combat in Bye Sweet Carole, but Lara's helplessness only amps up the tension.
She can hide in tight spaces and hold her breath when an enemy is chasing her – here, a terrifying school cook wielding a meat tenderizer – or transform into a little bunny rabbit to hide beneath tables, squeeze into narrow gaps, and run faster to evade capture. I don't have any health items at my disposal, but Lara's health bar seems to replenish over time and as I move from chapter to chapter. Fall damage is definitely punishing, too, but once I get the hang of how climbing works, I keep these to a minimum.
My favorite thing about these stealth segments, aside from luring the evil cook into various other rooms using bells or breakable items, is the musical accompaniment. Bye Sweet Carole is nothing if not cinematic, the constant orchestral swell rising and falling in tandem with the action. It reminds me of the glorious final battles in many of the best Disney films, framing the urgency of a situation and keeping me fully invested in my heroine's plight.
It's a tense, terrifying journey, but an incredibly heartfelt one at the same time. I play it with the wonder of a child, spellbound by the touches of magic permeating everything from the red-eyed owl watching my every footstep to the glittering pink letterbox that functions as a save point.
Bye Sweet Carole doesn't need zombies, ink ribbons, and typewriters to be an excellent survival horror game. By turning our rose-tinted memories of youth into the stuff of fairytale nightmares, it manages to subvert every expectation we have – both of a horror game, and of what a final girl looks like. Who says a damsel in distress can't be a hero too?
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