Being a child of the 1990’s, I am no stranger to what some would consider to be the “golden age” of Disney animation. Every time I visited my mother’s parents in scenic Long Island (imagine a massive suburb of New York City that spans…a lot of miles), we would watch Bambi. At home, we had some of the regular early mainstays of Disney, including Cinderella, Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, and Alice in Wonderland. This era of films is something that, for many, strikes a massive chord of nostalgia, especially when seeing art styles akin to these films. This past year at Gamescom 2025, we were treated with a deeper look at Bye Sweet Carole, an upcoming dark fantasy puzzle-platformer from Little Sewing Machine.

Published by Maximum Entertainment, Bye Sweet Carole is the dream of Italian artist and director Chris Darril, the creator behind indie classic Remothered. The moment that I caught a glimpse of the trailer for this game in all the announcements from Gamescom, I knew that we were in for something special. Bye Sweet Carole is slated for release on all platforms on October 9th, 2025.

We were fortunate enough to be able to get our hands on a copy of Bye Sweet Carole for early review. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the world of mystery, rabbits, and friendship.

The World and Story

Bye Sweet Carole is set within two worlds. The real world – set in an early 20th century England, right around the dawning of the suffrage movement (which will be a key component of the story). And then there is the world of Corolla. A world of ash, tar, coal, and rabbits ruled by a sinister man known as Mr. Kyn.

At the center of the story, we have Lana Benton, a young girl who resides at Bunny Hall Orphanage (because it wouldn’t be early 20th century England without an orphanage). Lana, having recently lost her mother, always finds herself out of place amongst the other girls at the orphanage. With the exception of one young girl – Carole Simmons.

One day, Carole goes missing from Bunny Hall Orphanage and no one has a clue as to where she has gone. It ultimately falls to Lana to find where Carole has gone. In her journey to find her friend, Lana discovers the previously mentioned world of Corolla…and it might have been against her will (in terms of discovery).

Within the dark dreamlike world of Corolla, Lana finds herself transformed into…you’d guess correctly: a rabbit! Despite this, Lana must press on and survive to find the truth behind what happened to Carole.

The Gameplay

Bye Sweet Carole sits in that unique niche between platformer and point-and-click puzzle game. As Lana (in both human and rabbit form), you’ll need to navigate through each chapter, using the abilities of each of your forms, solving puzzles…and avoiding some less than pleasant beings in Corolla.

In these moments where you find yourself fleeing from all manners of creature, the game turns on the stealth components. There will be locations throughout each chapter where Lana can hide. And those long ears aren’t just for show – they can hear you breathe! You’ll need to find a good balance between fleeing, hiding, and managing your breath – because you obviously need to breathe!

As this is a point-and-click puzzle game, there are obviously expectations that certain objects will allow you to interact with other pieces of the environment. Also – be prepared to combine items – to suit your needs as you continue your progress through the world. And without spoiling too much – there’s time travel. So yeah – puzzles that span across time. It’ll make sense when you get to it, I promise.

One final aspect of the gameplay, which I am going to cover in the most vague of details (because spoilers), is combat. Yes – there are combat sections in Bye Sweet Carole – specifically, two of them. However, it’s not complex. See enemy. Hit button to hit enemy. Enemy explodes in a pop of tar. You’ll have to play to see more of what I’m talking about.

Human Form

In her human form, Lana can manipulate her environment by moving certain heavy objects around that may give you a boost to access other areas (or key items/interactive objects). However, Lana is also much more susceptible from high falls as a human and is also not able to squeeze through smaller areas. And that, friends, is where the rabbit form comes into play.

Rabbit Form

As a rabbit, Lana will obviously not be able to move large crates and armoires around the level. But she can, however, squeeze into small areas where in her human form she could not. Also, with her smaller size, she is less prone to taking fall damage (I guess because of her lighter weight? I don’t know – physics was hard for me). With her hopping ability, she can also wall jump in narrow chutes to get to higher areas. One other facet of rabbit form Lana is that there will be certain objects that she cannot interact with in her furry form. But weirdly…she can manipulate a screwdriver? Don’t lose too much sleep over it – I didn’t.

Playing as Baesie

You may be asking yourself – who is Baesie? Baesie is a kindly (and very tall) man (?) from Corolla who aids Lana on her journey. While he doesn’t have a mouth, he is able to talk with his hands, much like using a puppet (it’s actually pretty cute).

Now, not every chapter will allow you to play as Baesie, only because he’s not in every chapter. But that being said, when Baesie is an option, you can flip between his vantage point and Lana’s. Why? Because puzzles! In the words of Rob Base “It takes two to make a thing go right. It takes two to make it outta sight!”

Baesie himself also has two forms! As a full-size Baesie, you can use his umbrella as a figurative sword – to not only attack enemies, but break up clutter and maybe even some weaker walls. And then there is the silly head-only Baesie. While in this form, Baesie can be squished to a nearly-flat pancake, which will allow you to access even more narrow areas that Lana could not reach. While in this form, Baesie can also carry with him elements. Now, what do I actually mean by this? If something needs a flame and there happens to be a fire nearby, Baesie can light himself on fire and bring that flame where it’s needed. The same goes for electricity as well!

I will just say this too – I absolutely adored Baesie. He was the comic relief that this game definitely needed at points (because there are some heavy moments). I will simply leave you with the image below – do with it what you will.

The Good

I have prattled on as much as I can about both the story, as well as the gameplay. And sadly, that’s all I can give you in those regards – the story is honestly best experienced by playing and I think it would be a disservice to dive further beyond in this review. Now, let’s talk about what I liked and didn’t like.

The Art and Music

I said this earlier – the artwork of this game is simply breath-taking. It’s amazing to me how well Little Sewing Machine managed to capture the early Disney aesthetic in Bye Sweet Carole. Throughout the entire game, we are treated with some absolutely stunning shots that, in my opinion, could be framed as art on your wall.

The musical score of the game was also a treat and so well presented. Especially with animation, your music can further set the tone that you’re seeking and I do think that Bye Sweet Carole did this masterfully. Additionally, the final song that we are treated with in the end credits, Corolla, had no business going as hard as it did.

The Puzzles and Character Building

The puzzle mechanics of the game were, while not incredibly easy, were not beyond solving. I definitely had a few moments where I got stumped…only to figure out that I had missed something. I think that that truly makes a good puzzle game – the solution should make you think and not just be handed to you.

The characters themselves were also very well-written and complimented the story that was being told. Themes of friendship, loss, the passage of time, and women’s rights abounded and I felt it was such a beautiful story.

One last little thing I enjoyed, solely because it felt so out of place (which I know is weird), was the dancing mini-game. I played a lot of Dance Dance Revolution as an awkward teenager, so I did enjoy having this little element worked into the game, even if it was a surprise! After all, who expects a rhythm game component of a puzzle-platformer?

I have waxed poetically for a while on what I loved about this game. Now it’s time to pick nits with some fervor – I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t.

The Bad

Technical Hiccups

One of the biggest concerns that I had with Bye Sweet Carole were the…frequent bugs I encountered. While not (always) game-breaking, they were somewhat frustrating. Rather than go into heavy details, I’ll give a summary listing of what I ran into.

• Many times, Lana would jump up to objects and glitch into grabbing something else. There were frequent moments where it looked like Lana was climbing an invisible box in some areas.
  • This was coupled with Lana and Baesie being able to clip into objects that should have been solid. And while you wouldn’t get stuck, it would beg the question why were we even allowed to do certain actions in these areas.
• There were several instances of enemies in the game getting “stuck” on objects. I posted one such instance I ran into below.
• Sometimes in the process of dying in the game, the audio of Lana dying would get stuck in a loop. That wouldn’t stop with a pause. Or even going to the main menu of the game. I would have to hard restart the game in these instances.
• Later in the game, there was an instance where I needed to reload the game. When I started again, Lana was in an area that should not have been accessible due to the environment resetting – leaving her stuck.
• In the last chapter, there were areas where Lana, in rabbit form, could not jump off the wall to get to a higher area. It resulted in me dying…easily 10 times, as there seemed to be only one sweet spot area where the wall-jump function actually worked.

These were the more memorable bugs that I had issues with while progressing the game. I do understand that some bugs will always be a factor of any video game. However, these seem to be bugs that should have been…caught, with earlier play-testing.

Voice-Over Quality

Another area of concern that I had was the voice-acting in the game. For the most part, it was exceptionally well-done. However, there were noticeable instances where the quality of the voice work was wildly different. Maybe I have gotten more accustomed to the nuances of audio work in my free time, but I could not help wincing when I heard voice lines that sounded…muffled. Like someone had recorded the lines, but no filtering had been done to clean up the audio.

The Overall

I know that I definitely presented a veritable list of hiccups with Bye Sweet Carole. But ultimately, they didn’t take me away fully from what I wanted: a good story. I am not one for crying (not a masculinity thing, I just don’t cry too much) but I did find myself getting a little choked up at the end of the game. Bye Sweet Carole will provide you with the gamut of emotions, from stress and discomfort, to happiness, to joy, and to outright sadness. You’ll panic when getting chased by a raging bunny with a meat mallet. You’ll laugh when you hear some of the lines from Baesie. And maybe you’ll cry when you see the resolution of Lana’s journey. Bye Sweet Carole offers this all in a neat little puzzle-game package.

Bye Sweet Carole is currently available on all platforms.

Gamer Social Club was provided an early-access code for the purposes of this review. This review was played on PC (Steam).