Spend 10 minutes bringing books to life in Librood

Here's something to brighten/darken your Thursday. Librood is a free, ten minute game where you play as a little girl with a strange illness that makes everything she reads manifest in the real world... if you can be sure that's where you are. It's like a darker, short-form take on the Inkheart books - or the mediocre Inkheart movie, if you insist. It's a game about surprises, so maybe you should just go and play it before you read on.

It's a bit of a shame that every new entity comes out of the same cupboard. A game about surprises should try and spring them on you in every possible way, and Librood could do more to mix things up. But hey, it was made in 72 hours for game jam Ludum Dare 40, so I can't complain too much.

The whole point is that you don't know what's going to appear next, so I can't go into too much detail without spoiling it. I will say that I enjoyed the sudden appearance of a mischievous looking robot, only to see it politely tuck itself into the corner like a sci-fi Roomba.

There's a sense of menace that grows with the appearance of every shadow, and the whole thing is accompanied by an appropriately sinister soundtrack. It's simultaneously a warning about the dangers of isolating yourself from the world, and a celebration of how books can spark the imagination. I really should do more reading.

You can pay what you want to play Librood on Itch.io.

If you're after more, the Ludum Dare 40 jam ended on Tuesday this week - you can check out the rest of the games that were made for it here.