CARIMARA – Beneath the forlorn limbs review: Weird and wonderful

CARIMARA: Beneath the forlorn limbs is a strange and unusual game – and we mean this as the highest of compliments. This point-and-click mystery has much more to it than meets the eye initially, with plenty of secrets and riddles to uncover.

If you’ve been wondering whether to pick up this horror-adventure from Bastinus Rex and CRITICAL REFLEX, you’ll find The Escapist’s full review below, looking at everything from the aesthetic to the core gameplay loop.

The Escapist recaps

• CARIMARA: Beneath the forlorn limbs is a weird and whimsical title made by Bastinus Rex and published by CRITICAL REFLEX.
• CARIMARA is a story-rich, point-and-click game that toes the line between horror, fantasy, and adventure. It’s unsettling and eerie, but charming at moments, too, with a small but vibrant cast of characters.
• The core gameplay loop revolves around you solving a mystery, using your deck of cards to communicate and interact with the world around you. It’s cyclical in nature – the first time you fail (and you will), it’s not game over. 
• CARIMARA performed well and looked exquisite, with a decadently dark art style and a well-designed world. Other than finding the controls somewhat fiddly with one particular element, we had no complaints during our review session.

Unsettling and uninviting, yet utterly charming

CARIMARA sets out what to expect from the get-go, introducing the game with a brief, storybook-esque cutscene and showcasing the dark, unsettling world you’ve found yourself in. Things only get weirder as soon as you pick up a deck of cards.

The player character cannot speak; instead, they use a deck of cards to communicate. You’ll start off with a handful of cards, but as you progress and find more interactive items around the world, you’ll be given more.

The cards are the key to unravelling the mystery at the core of CARIMARA. Without spoiling it too heavily, you’ve been hired to get rid of a ghost in the basement of the old woman’s cottage, which requires answering a string of mysterious questions. To get the answers, you’ll need to speak with characters and explore the world with your cards.

The story gets darker and more twisted as you uncover more secrets and speak to the characters about new topics. It’s well-written and engaging, with some surprising moments in key conversations.

Figuring out the next step can be difficult, but there’ll always be an answer in the cards. We found the gameplay loop to be intriguing, with just enough challenge stitched into the riddles to keep things engaging and rewarding.

CARIMARA is a relatively short game – our complete review session took roughly two hours, including plenty of time exploring and trying to find secrets. If desired, you could play through it much quicker than this. It’s a short but mesmerizing experience that fans of eerie worldbuilding and mysteries will get a kick out of. 

A compact but mighty addition to the indie horror scene

CARIMARA: Beneath the forlorn limbs looked fantastic and performed well during our review session. The controls were intuitive, for the most part, and we didn’t run into any visual quirks or flaws during our time with the game.

The only minor issue that we encountered was that selecting an object or interactive element in the world could be a little fiddly. Sometimes, it took a while to get the character into the correct spot to be able to interact with an item.

Other than this, CARIMARA was a delight to play through, with a story that felt rich and rewarding to explore.

If you’re wondering how scary CARIMARA is, it’s best described as unnerving instead of outright terrifying.

It’s a subtle, dread-inducing type of horror that’ll make you doubt your surroundings, instead of noisy jump scares or chase sequences. There were a few moments that made us jump, but there wasn’t anything too intense. 

CARIMARA: Beneath the forlorn limbs is a short but sweet horror-adventure that’ll be a joy for any indie horror lover to play through. The card-based dialogue and exploration mechanic was unique, and the world itself had clearly been crafted with care, with a gorgeously eerie art style that matched the narrative nicely.

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