Mountain Shadow for parents: what the game is like

Mountain Shadow is a calm planning game in the browser for kids from about 8 to 12. The player leads a settler family in 1856 into the Swedish mountains, assigns jobs like fishing, haymaking and building, and gets the family through the dark winter. Nobody in the game dies or gets hurt, and there are no ads and nothing to buy. This page lists the facts a grown-up may want before their child plays.

What does the player do?

• Packs a sledge and walks five days into the mountains, answering one small question each evening.
• Plans each season: picks a job for each of the eight family members, then presses Go! and watches them work.
• Builds a farm step by step: a lean-to, a cabin, a drying rack, a barn and more.
• Fills three winter piles (wood, food and hay) and gets ready for cold days and one big storm each winter.
• Collects shuffled stories in a Story Book, and celebrates a sun festival at the end of every year.

Time stands still while the player plans, and can be stopped at any time during the work. The game rewards planning, not fast reactions. How it plays is on how to play.

Content notes

• Hardship without harm. The setting is a poor settler family in a cold place. When food or firewood runs short, family members become "tired" and may rest "in bed" for a season. Help always arrives: bark bread, the Sámi neighbours or a neighbours' sledge. Nobody dies or is hurt.
• Wild animals. A bear, wolves, a lynx or a wolverine may come close at night. Every choice the child makes sends the animal away, nothing is lost and no animal is hurt.
• The Sámi family. A Sámi family with reindeer are the settlers' neighbours and friends. They visit, help in hard times and solve a quarrel about hay together with the settlers. The small print on the credits page says how the Sámi content is checked.
• History. The game uses real place names from northern Sweden. Every person in the game is made up, and their names are drawn at random. A few stories touch on history, like a long trip to a market town, a gathering with a church, an official who visits, and neighbours who leave for America.
• Weather and darkness. Winter is dark and snowy, with one storm each year. The storm is shown with wind and snow, and the report tells how the family stayed warm.

How much reading is there?

All text is written in short sentences. Every line can be read aloud: Read aloud is on from the start and uses the device's own speech voice. It can be turned off, and its volume set, in Settings. Icons and picture bars show the piles and goals, so younger children can follow along.

How long is a session?

The report after every season and the sun festival after every year make natural stopping points. The game also pauses by itself when the tab is hidden.

Where is progress saved?

The game saves by itself in the browser on the device being played on. There are three save slots, so siblings can each have their own family. If the browser can't save, or the game is open in two tabs, the game says so. A save that can't be read is kept aside and the game tells the player, rather than losing it silently.

Ads, purchases and data

• No ads.
• Nothing to buy inside the game.
• No links lead out of the game.
• When the game starts, it sends one note to the Contenta Games portal's own statistics.

Devices, controls and languages

• Plays in a web browser on computers, phones and tablets, with no download. It needs a browser that can show 3D (WebGL).
• Keyboard and mouse, game controller or touch. On phones and tablets, the game is played sideways; menus also work upright.
• Settings include volume, music, sound effects, Moving effects (Calm makes motion gentler), Graphics (Auto, Low, High), Read aloud and the voice volume.
• Nine languages: English, Swedish, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Chinese.

All controls are on the controls page.

How to get the game

Mountain Shadow can be tried for free. The full game is part of the Contenta Games membership, which opens every game on the portal. See what a membership includes, or browse the guides to all our games.

See also

• The guide's front page: what the game is about.
• FAQ: quick answers to common questions.
• Your first ten minutes: what the start looks like.
• Credits: the small print.
• Other calm games for this age: the Bloom Haven guide and the Nordic Recovery guide.
• Play Mountain Shadow together.

• About Mountain Shadow
• All game guides