Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth – Review

moomintroll winter's warmth

I love The Moomins. I watched the cartoons as a child, and was completely enamoured by the slightly self conscious Moomintroll, the creative Snorkmaiden, and the rebellious Snufkin. As I got a little older I read some of Tove Jansson’s books and found myself even more engrossed in the strange goings on of the Moomin Valley, whilst collecting a host of Moomin knick knacks that clutter up my flat.

Hyper Games, the studio behind Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth, clearly have the same love for The Moomins as they’ve lovingly recreated Moominvalley and it’s odd inhabitants twice now. First in Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley back in 2024, and now in Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth.

I Can’t Sleep

Those familiar with The Moomins, or returning players from Snufkin; Melody of Moominvalley, will know that Moomins are summer creatures that hibernate through the cold winter months. We start the game with Moominpappa stoking the furnace and covering the furniture, while Moominmamma tucks in Moomintroll with promises of breakfast when spring arrives.

Drifting off thinking about all the fun times he’ll get to have with his best friend Snufkin come warmer months, Moomintroll is rudely awakened by banging throughout the house. Luckily we quickly discover it’s just a squirrel looking for some warmth, unluckily it managed to knock over half the house and open all the windows in the process. Even worse, we scare it off into the cold night, and must go out to save it from the cold.

The Moomins doesn’t really shy away from the realities of life, perhaps it’s a Scandinavian thing, but when we find the squirrel he’s sadly frozen solid. Our friend Too Ticky tries to help by providing us with mittens so we can pick up snow, but no sooner do we have them on that the squirrel has vanished, taken by the Lady of the Cold as she visits the valley. Too Ticky let’s us know how to get rid of her – we need to gather Winter Beings around a great bonfire, to dance and welcome spring back to Moominvalley.

Bring me My Heirlooms

In order to throw a big enough party to welcome in the spring, Moomintroll needs to help three Winter Beings, find lots of firewood and invite some guests to the party. To achieve these goals he must complete a series of quests where you must help the inhabitants of Moominvalley keep warm and safe through the winter. Some are simple, clear the snow from Fillyjonk’s garden, some are more involved – get Moominmamma silver tray back from Little My as she rides it down the side of the mountain.

It’s not a difficult game by any means, and I can’t really imagine anyone sitting down to play a Moomin game would expect it to be. You get a handful of tools as you progress so you can clear obstacles and get to other areas of the valley, and there’s optional tasks to complete for shards of Moominmamma’s favourite vase that was smashed in the squirrel incident. The lack of challenge doesn’t mean there’s not a fun game to be found here though. As you play you’ll get to play hide and seek with Winter Beings and Fillyjonk’s kids, help Sorry-oo through the Winter Forest as you chop up fallen trees and try and dodge the wind threatening to blow you over, dash across frozen lakes looking for nuts to roast with The Joxter and – my favourite – huck snowballs at Little My (seriously, stop stealing my stuff My).

You can upgrade your tools too to unlock more ways to explore. Tougher mittens will let you roll massive snowballs and a sharper axe lets you break ice blocks. You’ll need these to open up new paths to work through the mostly linear set of quests the game gives you. There are a few optional bits here and there – you only need three Winter Beings to complete the main quest, so choosing to help the others is for optional rewards like more firewood and because it’s the right thing to do – and they’re mostly good fun for fleshing out the world and it’s characters. One of two felt a little tacked on, going back into the cave to find some mice after you’d cleared springs to mind, but this a cosy game to be enjoyed curled up on the couch, not something to blast through at a rapid clip.

The Sights and Sounds of the Valley

And while you’re all curled up on the couch – potentially with a nice cup of hot chocolate – you can enjoy how much work Hyper Games have put into making it feel like you’re in one of Tove Jansson’s books. The Moominvalley is brought to life beautifully. Each character looks like they’ve just walked off the page onto your computer, their 2D ‘papercraft’ forms slotting perfectly over the watercolour environments. As you walk you’ll carve pathways through the snow, that persist throughout the game, so you can tell where you (or others) have been. In caves and the forest, light filters through the ceiling and sparkles off icey floors and snowdrifts. Too Ticky is right to love winter, just differently from summer.

The music is also a delight. Composed by Joar Renolen, each of the tracks complete the storytelling of the scene – from tinkling chimes of snow to the tense sounds of wolves hiding off in the shadows. Moominpappa’s axe thunks into logs as you clear them for firewood, icicles shatter with a satisfying crash as they fall to fill gas for you to cross, and every footstep is accompanied with the crunch of powdery snow underfoot. Visually and audibly the team have done a wonderful job at capturing the slight sense of melancholy winter brings, as the days get darker and everyone feels a little bit lonelier.

I did encounter a few small visual bugs here and there – with Moomintroll sometimes failing to exit his dash animation and getting stuck on the ground for a good 30 seconds before he reverted to normal, and dialogue bubbles popping up more than once upon the completion of a task, but they wee few and far between and didn’t really affect my enjoyment of my time in the valley.

Final Thoughts

Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth is another charming trip into the world of Moominvalley, this time telling a slightly more wistful story about loneliness, resilience and finding friendship even when times are tough. A masterclass in cosy game design, serving as a heartfelt love letter to Tove Jansson’s enduring world. While it may lack the mechanical complexity of more traditional adventure games, its strength lies in its atmosphere and its deep reverence for the source material. Hyper Games has successfully captured the unique duality of the Moomin stories – the whimsical charm of helping neighbors balanced against the slight, beautiful melancholy of a lonely Scandinavian winter.