Reviews by manonamora

Le Grenier is a short puzzle game made in Moiki, where you explore the attic of your childhood home. Among the forgotten comics and old games, you stumble one a locked box, tied to which is a note from your mother that starts a small treasure hunt. Going through the different old boxes and furniture pieces, you must solve a little enigma to find the code, and open the locked trunk.
It was cute, and the prose felt sentimental. I struggled with the code, starting with the wrong end of the hint...

Les Idylles is a short demo set in the fictional fantasy land of Loghria, filled with mystery and magic. In this episode, your goal is to help Elinor, a young woman who was tricked by a magician, needing help to break the 'Tattumanti' pledge. The short game includes multiple endings, some helping the woman at the cost of your own freedom, some changing your mind and leave her to deal with her problem by herself.

It was a fun little puzzling adventure, and I'm looking forward to further episodes. I liked the playfulness of the writing, with the play on words.

Solitary Stars is a hyperlink exploration game written in Inform, set in an alternative earth, in a capital of an unnamed country after a succession of Wars (potentially WWII?). You receive a letter from a former mentor, inviting you to see his incredibly discovery that will change the world. The letter, and travelling back to the capital that shaped the trajectory of your life, forces you to reminisce on the past, bringing up difficult and painful memories.

Through its extensive and flowery prose, the game describes quite the dark setting. Between the memories of a distant past, filled with conflicts, a rise of an authoritarian power, and your own personal struggles (choice-dependent), you find during the little walk around the Observatory a somewhat dystopian society. The city is filled with scars from the war, with buildings left in shambles, flyers mandating orders from the populace or face the consequences, militia roaming the streets. But also consequences of the wars, with immigrants fleeing further conflicts flooding the region, past acquaintances avoiding you, etc...

The outlook of life and society through this lens is both depressing and melancholic (enhanced by the choice of background), with bitterness towards the old mentor, as he has thrived while you (and the rest of the Group) clearly have not. And the revelation of his discovery does not bring solace to the MC - aside, maybe from spending time with an old friend.

I think I found the exploration of the city/neighbourhood with the reflection of the past from the MC more interesting than this final revelation. Seeing how the city changed since the last time the MC walked its streets, as well as how little it did in other regards, is a familiar feeling - like going back home or to a place you spent an important part of your life.

the mountain is as it always was is a short kinetic piece made in bitsy, as a reflection of memories, loss, and what it means to be alive.

With its minimal 3-bit palette and concise prose, this tiny piece follows a little sprite struggling to find meaning in their life with a job that doesn't inspire them and struggling with their finances. Their thoughts (and feet) keep bringing them back to Nature, with its calming and unchanging state. Away from the drowning surroundings of the city, the sprite get to take a moment and meditate on their life.

Through the reflections of relationships and heartbreaks, loss of trusted parents, or their ever-lasting fears, the short piece is very touching and resonated deeply with me. The return to nature to find-oneself might be a trope, but the calming factor of being away from everything, disconnecting with our complicated lives, and just be there, present, surrounded with things that were here before us and will probably be here when we are long gone...

It made me quite emotional.

She Rises is a short fantasy adventure, looking more like a prototype than a fledged out story. Set in an unnamed fantasy kingdom, you play as Princess Arcadia, who just learned of her father's death and the loss of an important artefact. To ensure the safety of the kingdom, you must find said artefact and bring it home.

The setting is a bit silly, with (Spoiler - click to show)a diamond fork being the only thing ensuring the safety of the kingdom, or the fact that no one but her tries to avenge her father's death. This may be due to the formatting of the text, as some sort of script/theatre piece, but a lot is glanced over for the sake of moving the story along. There is little breather for Arcadia to grieve her loss, not much kerfuffle to prepare the journey, or anyone pulling the Queen left and right to handle affairs, as if the kingdom runs just find without the monarch or no one cared much about the passed king... It's a bit strange?

Gameplay wise, you are given two choice blocks: where to get information to retrieve the artefact and which path to follow. It is a bit of a shame, as the latter part of the story has multiple opportunities to include branching and add to Arcadia's growth as a new monarch, like: (Spoiler - click to show)whether to fight or convince the Vikings blocking her from getting the map, continue or retreat on the difficult journey when following the seer's/map's path, avoid fighting the person protecting the slave, talk to the slave who stole the fork... or even stay back at the castle and send a party to retrieve the fork. Even if those choices fail, it would have helped against the feeling of lacking agency, especially during the beats with tension. As is it, you are more strung along than actually leading the search.

Another small thing about the available choices: the game shows the player a binary choice with the potential actions, which is repeated just above the listed action in plain text - options introduced above said line in the actual story. This repetition felt pretty unnecessary...

Interface wise, there was a bit of an issue with the display of new passages. After clicking a link to a new page, the text doesn't scroll back to the top, you have to do it manually. This spoils the story quite a bit...

The Family Records is a short interactive game made in Decker where you find yourself stuck in an empty manor after a snowstorm. Except the manor is not empty as you think, you find out by going through the different rooms.

Unable to leave the manor, Death greets you with a task: help the remaining souls find their way and you too will be free of this place. Along the task, Death gives you a book of rituals and the family record of the residents of this manor. Throughout the manor, you will find said ghosts, remnants of souls that you can talk to, and items, which you will need for the rituals.

In the style of older point-n-click games, in a black-n-white palette, the game lets you explore the manor, search the different rooms, listen to the ambient sound, and talk to the available resident. Find all the souls, gather up the items, and match the rituals to the correct person to set them free.

I enjoyed the game quite a bit, and didn't see the end coming.

In this tiny game, you play a child chimneysweeper on the first day of their job. You'd expect the chimney to go straight up to the top, but... multiple paths strangely lay ahead of you: take one and find yourself in a strange world, the other takes a more creepy and suffocating approach.

You never know what's around the corner...

Riddle Me Sweets is a short VN mixing bits and pieces of old tales like *Hansel and Gretel* and *Cinderella*, in a way that the siblings live under the thumb of the "step-mother", a baker who welcomed them into her home (and more or less forced them to do chores to survive). Some reprieve is found when a mouse-fairie comes to their rescue and pushes the "step-mother"/witch into the fire.

*Now's the time for escape!* If... there wasn't the mayor at the door, waiting for his order. With no way other way to escape (since the corpse is still there, burning), Hansel and Gretel must fulfil the different orders of the day and satisfy their customers.
Another wrench is thrown into the mix as neither Hansel nor Gretel ever made those recipes, and the cooking book was written in forms of riddles (so they wouldn't be stolen). So you must solve the little riddles, find the 3 correct ingredients for each recipe, and solve the day!

Some of the riddles are not super obvious, and while you have three chances to find the correct combination, you will get a game over if you mess up too much. Saving before baking each order is very much needed if you don't want to go through all the story (and potentially the previously cleared dishes). It's a bit frustrating at times, as many ingredients could fit some of the riddles, and there are no hints.

But it's still a pretty fun and silly time. I liked it :)

L'épreuve divinatoire is a short choice-based adventure that tests your knowledge of superstitions, common sense, and a few idioms. In this small absurd story, you are on your way to take your exam to become an oracle but are met with a few trials of your own. If you manage to solve the issues and finish your exam before the allocated time, you may be able to continue your studies! Or... you could succumb to the distractions put on your path.

It's stilly, definitely absurd, and fairly entertaining.

Until Tomorrow is a short experimental interactive piece made with Decker where you can explore the content of a computer.

Starting with a browser opened on a Youtube page for the song Comme de bien entendu, which sets a tone for what you may find, you are able to go through multiple folders on the desktop, a mailbox, and the last opened page on the browser. The game is very subtle in delivering the story, making you piece together the different elements as you examine the digital fragments of a life.

The final tale is quite depressing, being centred around loss, greed, and injustice.