Bronze

"When the seventh day comes and it is time for you to return to the castle in the forest, your sisters cling to your sleeves."

Bronze is a work of Interactive Fiction by Emily Short and a darker retelling of the Beauty and The Beast tale. You play as Beauty, on the day that you must return to the Beast's castle as part of the magical binding contract you have made in exchange for your father's freedom. However, upon re-entering the castle's gates, you soon find that something is amiss.

The game focuses on exploration and puzzle-solving, with a total of 55 rooms to explore and several different endings.

The game can be downloaded for free here.

This Game Contains Examples of:

 * Beast and Beauty
 * Bittersweet Ending: If you restore the Beast, but fail to end the curse that keeps the servants and everyone (including you) trapped there for eternity.
 * The Casanova: The Beast hints that he was this before his transformation, and.
 * Deal with the Devil:.
 * Fractured Fairy Tale
 * Grimmification: The Beast is much more morally ambiguous here than in most versions, and it's telling that Beauty can actually kill him if she wants to in one ending.
 * Haunted Castle: Haunted by the souls of those who are enslaved by the castle's curse.
 * House of Broken Mirrors: Beauty has moved all the mirrors in the Beast's castle into her room, at first to keep the Beast away, and then, later, when she comes to know him, says that she'll keep them there because she knows the Beast doesn't like seeing them around the castle.
 * Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The Beast is said to tower over Beauty to such an extent that a dancing lesson between them had to be done with Beauty on a stool.
 * I Have You Now, My Pretty: What Beauty's father assumes has happened.
 * Love Redeems: It's implied that the Beast has become a better person ever since Beauty came to live with him. He himself acknowledges that it doesn't absolve him of the crimes he committed in the past, however, and it's up to Beauty to decide whether he deserves freedom from his curse or punishment for his crimes.
 * Magically-Binding Contract: Anyone who sets foot in the Beast's castle magically becomes enslaved to its current ruler, and can't leave even in death, their spirits remaining as servants of the Beast.
 * The Maze: The basement beneath the castle.
 * Multiple Endings