Follow Mathilda, a young warrior who is not afraid of the challenges waiting in a Viking-inspired world. Enter a fantastic land where this brave girl must rely on agility, ingenuity and courage.
Mathilda is a free browser-based 2.5D platform game with a polished, colourful 3D look. It is designed for both PCs and mobile phones. There is nothing to install — all you need is a modern web browser and an internet connection. The game is designed primarily for younger players from around the age of seven, but it can be plenty of fun for older players as well.
Mathilda's world leads through varied locations and introduces new challenges along the way. As the adventure progresses, Mathilda collects runes that expand her abilities and gradually turn her into a more capable warrior. Enemies become more demanding too, but the difficulty increases gradually so that younger players are not frustrated by sudden spikes.
Violence is kept to a minimum. At the end of each level, the game shows that defeated monsters have been captured rather than killed. Levels also contain secrets, collectibles and hidden places that are not always found by taking the most obvious route.
Mathilda's world is fantasy inspired by Vikings, but historical consistency and realism are deliberately treated loosely — atmosphere, fun and gameplay matter more. Many enemy characters were invented by my daughter. Each of them has its own meaning and story in her imagination, and her ideas have also inspired many of the places found in the game.
Mathilda is a platform game where reaching the end of a level is only part of the challenge. Each stage exercises agility, timing and observation while encouraging players to find their own ways around obstacles.
Jumps, dodges, moving platforms, traps and enemies gradually demand better control and timing. The difficulty increases step by step, giving younger players room to improve their platforming skills without sudden difficulty spikes.
Secrets, mechanisms, hidden passages and alternative routes encourage players to observe the environment and experiment. Not every obstacle has one obvious solution — sometimes a clever idea matters just as much as quick fingers.
Progress and activity during play earn points. In the in-game shop, those points can be exchanged for armour pieces, allowing players to mix equipment and gradually build their own look and protection for Mathilda.
Runes found during the adventure improve selected abilities, including movement, jumping, attacks and resilience. They let players strengthen Mathilda and adapt her abilities to the way they prefer to play.
Mathilda's enemies grow together with the game world. Some already have their own stories, while more descriptions will be added as new levels and ideas appear.
Venomella comes from a Venus flytrap. In Mathilda’s first computer game, even the simplest enemy looked like a plant with a huge mouth — and it truly scared her. We tamed that fear in our own way. I bought her a real Venus flytrap, and Mathilda cared for it and gave it a name. In English I call the game version Venomella.
Atomic Bumblump grew out of conversations about nature, radiation and pop culture. Mathilda is fascinated by different natural phenomena, so one day we tried to explain what radiation is, where it comes from and how it works. Later, the conversation wandered toward Fallout-style ghouls — people changed by radiation into something between a human and a zombie. Mathilda found that idea fascinating, so this creature had to appear in the game.
Raggrump is my English version of the Polish word „łachmyta”: a ragged, grumpy little villain from our family mythology. When I did not want to explain a difficult social situation to Mathilda, it was often enough to say: “those are Raggrumps, and Raggrumps are bad.” In the game, Raggrump appears symbolically as a ragged thug. In my imagination, he is sometimes closer to a mean, spiteful old man from a fairy tale.
The Zombie is here for a very simple reason too: every good game has one somewhere in its lore, and I am ambitious enough to try to make a good game.
Gobblegrim is simply a very ugly turkey — a bird whose name already sounds like a warning. Once, during a walk, I admitted that turkeys make me uneasy — especially their strange heads and dangling bits of skin. Mathilda remembered that perfectly. Since then, she often threatens me in play with an approaching flock of terrifying turkeys.
The Skeleton does not need a complicated origin story. Every good adventure game needs a skeleton that rattles its bones and guards old secrets.
Bumling is a cheeky, mostly harmless creature with a bottom-shaped head. It teases children, makes grumpy faces and loves causing silly chaos. When Mathilda was very little, I often told her that Bumlings sneak in and attack children with tickles. It always ended in lots of laughter.
Once ordinary miners, their minds were taken over by evil powers. They are now forced to guard the mine and extract valuable resources for the forces they serve. No wonder they look tired.
Awakened from his sleep deep in the heart of the mountains, the Giant is extremely angry that someone disturbed his rest. It is probably best to keep your distance.
A figure who spreads germs and evil wherever he appears. He most likely has magical powers as well, which definitely does not improve the situation.
With Grubasek, watch out for both his fists and his belly. You may call the belly “the Drum” — according to Viking terminology, that is completely correct.
A visitor from Middle-earth who apparently used to be a Nazgûl. Without his dragon he is now “only” a very dangerous knight. “Only” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
A powerful being and the oldest inhabitant of this land. The Dragon had to be made smaller for the game — at his true size he would simply be impossible to defeat.
I waited four years to find out who the Sad Viking actually was. Only when Matylda learned to speak clearly did she explain that it was simply her way of saying “goodbye”. Please don't ask.
Mathilda is my daughter. She fell in love with the stories I told her about northern legends and, over time, began filling them with characters, monsters and places of her own.
She has reached an age when digital entertainment naturally becomes part of everyday life. To my surprise, I found that games for young people as curious about the world as she is still leave a gap: I wanted something that would give her room to imagine and let her explore at her own pace.
Above all, I wanted her to feel like the heroine of a world we had imagined together. Along the way, I decided to fulfil a small childhood dream of my own and try making a video game. That's how Mathilda came to life — a project in which both of us draw something from childhood, each in our own way: she gets to live hers, while I revisit a dream from mine.
Mathilda is created by Paweł Masnyk. The game is written in JavaScript and built on the PlayCanvas engine. It is designed to work across different platforms with as little setup as possible for the player — all that is required is internet access and a modern web browser.
The project includes its own level editor, an extensive 2.5D runtime and a backend handling features such as player accounts, saved progress and leaderboards. Development covers both the game's mechanics and world as well as the tools needed to continue expanding it.