In The Marionette by auriond, you play Martin, a sculptor, who is not all too you or aspiring anymore, and who matches the above description pretty well. Focused on nothing but his work, alienated from the outside world, proud. These character traits can serve you well if you are on your own, but if someone else gets in the way, somebody will get hurt.

Your task in The Marionette is to learn. You are sent on a symbol-heavy and surreal journey through the past of the one person that already got hurt – now it is up to you, do you want to make things worse, do you want to save what’s left to save? Do you want to change?

The first reaction by many was: This guy can’t draw, and he can’t spell. Ergo, this must be an attempt to waste my time. The more perceptive people decided that although he can neither draw or spell, he is a kid from Norway who loves to draw Disney characters, and even though it all went terribly wrong, you should not blame the fella for chasing that star and following his dream.

And then there were some who felt that this game, these two adventure games, were something very big and important, and although they could not really grasp what it was, they knew that they were probably about to witness their Disney socialization being decomposed and put back together, and they saw it was right.

Bjørnar B’s broken Duckburg has its own set of rules, and they all seem like little twists of the formalized Disney original. Fat uncle Jubalon enjoys his carbonated beverages by the dozen and thinks little of healthy porridge (which helped D. Duck win the Duckburg marathon, after all!). The nephews, going by names as varied as Ooie, Huie, Loouie or Dewi, listen to their degenerated modern C64 music. D. Duck’s arch nemesis is a crocodile called “Charls”.

In any case, it is up to the player in which way he wants to understand Bjørnar’s games and his whole universe. It could be criticism of the commercialisation and sell-out of “family values” by Disney. It could also be food for thought for those of us who have grown up with mainstream comic books and remember all the valuable lessons about education, friendship, love and money. But Life of D. Duck could also just be a set of characters thrown into a blender with marvellous doodle graphics, lovingly hand-crafted animations, brilliant and consistent storytelling and puzzles that can definitely compete with the genre classics. For those of you who don’t want it to be anything else.