The Dark Side of Hansel and Gretel is a 2021 freeware Point-and-Click game with horror-elements, created by Charon. It acts as a sort of spiritual sequel to Charon's previous game The Dark Side of Red Riding Hood in RPG Maker. It's available for free and can be downloaded here
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Hansel and Gretel are the children of a poor woodcutter and his wife. As there is not enough food to feed all of the family, Hansel and Gretel's parents make a plan to abandon them in the woods, so they can have what remains of the food for themselves. Unbeknownst to them, Hansel has been eavesdropping on their conversation and makes a plan to protect himself and his sister.
The Dark Side of Hansel and Gretel contains examples of the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Hansel and Gretel's parents leave them behind in the woods to die without a second thought twice.
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: A couple instances have Hansel affectionately pat Gretel's head.
- Adaptational Villainy: Gretel in the original fairy tale was not nearly as greedy as she is in this game, nor did she frequently display Troubling Unchildlike Behavior. Additionally, the original Gretel saved her brother's life in the Grimm-story and would never even have thought about leaving him behind in the woods to die.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: One ending has Gretel and her parents rejoice about the fact the former managed to abandon Hansel in the woods.
- Antagonistic Offspring: In the Revenge ending Hansel kills both of his parents with an axe.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: The parents of the titular twins set off the conflict by abandoning them to die in the forest twice, leading to all their potential deaths in each route.
- Big Brother Instinct: Hansel's first priority is always to protect Gretel and make sure that she's comfortable.
- Big Brother Worship: Gretel adores her big brother and would do absolutely anything for him, up to and including living in The Lost Woods together. Deconstructed, as her obsession with Hansel gets more than a little creepy later on. Subverted in the You're still alive? ending, which reveals that she was in on the parents' plan from the start and most likely faked her devotion to Hansel.
- Break the Cutie: Hansel gets broken and horribly traumatized in every single ending. That poor boy just can not catch a break, no matter what he does.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Gretel outright admits to having romantic feelings for her brother at several points and in the A Happy Tale ending, she's delighted by the idea of making love to him. Whether Hansel reciprocates is unclear, but he never shows any sort of reaction to Gretel's incestuous fantasies, either negative or positive.
- Comic Relief: The save point rabbit, a staple of Charon's games, and his companion the chick serve as this, with their reaction to Gretel's desire to eat them being played for laughs.
- Demoted to Extra: The Wicked Witch was the Big Bad of the original story, but here only appears in one route and is quickly killed by Gretel. The parents take over as the villains, since their relationship with their children is given more focus.
- Downer Ending: Every ending is incredibly dark and bleak. There is no happiness to be found in any of them. No, not even in the one that's called A Happy Tale.
- Driven to Suicide: Hansel kills himself after murdering his parents in the Revenge ending.
- Grimmification: Believe it or not, this game somehow manages to make a story about two children who get abandoned in the woods and almost eaten by a witch even darker.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The events taking place in the Strange House ending. Were the people in the house really a bunch of Humanoid Abominations with snake-like eyes? And did they really corrupt Gretel into becoming one of them, leading to her hunting down and killing Hansel? Or was Hansel just so traumatized from seeing what is heavily implied to be an orgy and right after that losing his sister to these people that they turned into monsters in his eyes? And was the monster-Gretel who came after him really there or was it just the guilt-induced Dying Dream of a broken boy?
- Multiple Endings: Like Dark Side of Red Riding Hood before it, the game is quite short, but has multiple long endings.
- True End - Lost in the Forest: Achieved by taking the far left route. After walking for a while, Hansel notices Gretel isn't there anymore. He tries to walk back the way he came to find her, but can't tell which way he came. He wanders deeper and deeper into the forest, until he eventually trips on Gretel's abandoned bow. Realizing that Gretel is most likely dead and too weak to go on, Hansel sits down by a tree and waits for death.
- True End - You're still alive? : Achieved by taking the middle left route and answering the mysterious girl's question with 'Yes'. Hansel and Gretel come across a mysterious cave and decide to go through it. When they enter, Gretel mysteriously vanishes, leaving Hansel all alone. He emerges from the cave to find himself near a pond and is approached by a mysterious girl. The girl shows surprise that someone other than her is in the forest and mentions that everyone in 'the village' knows not to enter it. Hansel explains to the girl that he is a child from outside the village who was abandoned. The girl pities him and asks whether he wants to get out of the forest, but also warns him that the future he wants may not be there. Hansel says that he wishes to continue and she sets him on the right path. When Hansel finally makes it home, he's just in time to overhear a conversation between his parents and Gretel, in which the parents praise Gretel for successfully leaving Hansel behind in the woods, to which Gretel responds that she can do anything if it makes her parents happy. Gretel notices Hansel and gives him a malicious smirk.
- True End - Revenge: Achieved by taking the middle left route and answering the mysterious girl's question with 'No'. Hansel tells the mysterious girl he doesn't wish to go on. She leaves him with the cryptic advice to think about what his loved one would want. After a long trek through the woods, Hansel manages to get back to the house, but is broken up over having lost Gretel. He kills their parents with an axe as revenge for Gretel's and his abandonment, then commits suicide to be with Gretel again.
- Bad End - A Happy Tale: Achieved by taking the middle right path. Hansel and Gretel come across a strange house made of candy. When they start to eat from it, an old woman steps out and invites them in. Hansel and Gretel eat until they fall asleep, at which point the old woman reveals that she is a witch who eats children. She locks Hansel in a giant bird cage and forces Gretel to prepare the stove and pot for her. When she demands Gretel to crawl in the stove to ignite it, Gretel says she doesn't know how. The witch grows impatient and crawls into the stove to light it herself. When the fire is burning, Gretel pushes the witch all the way in, burning her to death. She then frees Hansel, who stuffs his pockets with the treasures in the house. When he tries to leave, Gretel stops him and tells him they don't have to go back to their old home anymore and that the treasures now belong to them alone. She threatens Hansel not to leave her and expresses joy over a future of making love to her brother in the candy house. This is the only ending that has credits rolling after it's achieved, suggesting that it's the actual true ending.
- True End - Strange House: Achieved by taking the far right path. Hansel and Gretel arrive at a mysterious cave and choose to enter it. When coming out at the far side, they spot a wooden house in the distance. They both decide to examine it further as it's starting to get darker. Gretel discovers a hole in the wall and looks through, beckoning Hansel to do the same. The house is full of naked adults who, as Hansel puts it, dance an unknown dance. While Hansel is mortified by it, Gretel is visibly fascinated and wants to go inside. One of the adults hears them and steps outside and Gretel asks whether Hansel and her can join the games in the house. The man agrees and leads Gretel in by the hand, while a terrified Hansel watches. When the man turns to Hansel, he has snake-like eyes and Hansel flees into the woods in fear. It's only when he's forced to stop for breath that he realizes he basically abandoned Gretel and falls into despair. Until he hears a familiar voice calling out to him. Gretel appears, having apparently followed Hansel and calls him out for leaving her behind. She then turns into a monster and attacks him.
- Slasher Smile: When Gretel gets especially nasty, her normal smile turns into this, with a row of sharp teeth.
- Third-Person Person: Gretel always refers to herself in the third person.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: For a small child, Gretel is eerily obsessed with murder and sex. She comments more than once that she'd like to kill the save point bunny and its friend the chick for food, talks about how she'll happily kill anyone who threatens Hansel and in the Strange House and A Happy Tale endings she is delighted by seeing an orgy and gleefully fantasizes about having sex with Hansel.
- Schrödinger's Gun: Gretel's personality changes depending on which route you take. In the Revenge and Lost in the Forest endings she's just Hansel's adorable sister with a huge premature but otherwise relatively harmless crush on him. In the Strange House ending she's a deranged Creepy Child who is fascinated by watching orgies and even goes to join one. In the A Happy Tale ending she is an Ax-Crazy Yandere who'd go through any lengths to protect Hansel and keep him all to herself. And in the You're still alive? ending, she's a Manipulative Bitch who never actually loved Hansel and conspired with their parents to get rid of him.
- Wicked Witch: Hansel and Gretel come across one in the A Happy Tale ending, who tries to make them her evening snack. As in the original fairy tale, it doesn't end well for her.
- Yandere: In the A Happy Tales ending, Gretel's crush on Hansel becomes a full-blown obsession and she repeatedly tries to get him to abandon their initial goal of returning home to instead run away and live in the woods with her, while simultaneously casually mentioning that she'll kill anyone who threatens her brother. She later on makes good of that claim.
