When I first saw this game's trailer, I felt a bit deflated because it seemed to be a stealth game where you're running around little levels avoiding and antagonizing cops, which is funny but not really the sole thing I'd want out of a Moomin game. But my partner adores Moomin so I was honor bound to play it for her at some point, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley is not a level-based stealth game! You do sneak through parks but these are more like capstone dungeon-type areas for each section of the game and there are only about five of them. The rest of the time? You wander around Moominvalley trying to find your best buddy Moomin while doing silly little quests for the other denizens and finding inspiration for your music, which has gotten a little rusty during Snufkin's winter respite. This last I would say is shockingly charming. There's little depth to the music mechanics, you accrue three instruments over the course of the game, the harmonica which sounds in a radius around you, the flute which you aim in a specific direction, and the drum which of course plays a beat per button press. There are no rhythm or melodic mechanics, you just press the instrument button. Not everyone is receptive to music, and those who are will only engage with one instrument. But dang is it satisfying to walk around playing a silly little tune. Simplicity is best in Moominvalley, after all. There isn't much to the quests either, find these ingredients or find that missing bauble, but the real reward is the charming character chatter. Though it is also very charming to coax the Groke to sit on a forest fire or cheat Snork at a stick race.
I feel I simply must also talk about our Wiki advetures brought on by this game. See while I'm passingly familiar with the main Moomin cast and my partner moreso, there were still a few characters we didn't recognize or just wanted to learn about, such as the Groke or Mrs. Fillyjonks or the Woodies. Or, the Fuddler. After finishing the game, we took note of the DLC ad on the title screen for an extra episode called The Fuddler's Courtship and were like, who the heck is the Fuddler? Well, as it turns out, he is a very minor character who only showed up in the comic strip twice and never in the original books, being basically a younger copy of his father, the Muddler. But he also happens to have one of, if not the, longest pages on the Moomin Wiki in terms of text. All because of one editor, who had done very little else on the site until late one fateful night, who went on a mad editing spree over the course of an hour adding paragraph after long meandering paragraph about the Fuddler's bubbling misogyny and incelish tendencies and how this relates to the comic strip's greater emphasis on gender role critique than the books. I think. The grammar is poor and the sentiment rambling, it reads more than anything like someone forgot to take their meds. But this is a journal, a chronicle, so I can't not talk about it. And now I feel like I have to play his damn DLC.
Also, did you know Snufkin and Little My are half-siblings? And that Little My is the older one?
Game Number: 24
Year Played: 2025
Platform: Switch