Reviews by manonamora

As a tiny Choose-Your-Own-Adventure booklet, based on the 1958 of the same name, you play as a young child playing with your friends. The game: throwing pebbles at passers-by.

Pebble in hands, target acquired, you must roll some dices to determine your chances at a hit. You are then met with a choice: wait a bit longer (the target is not close) or throw it now - sending you towards one of two different endings.

The writing style of the game is very playful, almost childishly so, which works so well since you are a child doing childish things. It is also very visual in the limited descriptions - especially with its even-numbered passages.

A cute thing to play for a five-minute break!

With its minimalist prose, the story follows a woman with a heavy past who found solace in faith. This faith is tested when the woman meets a man with a questionable situation (mainly of loose morals and little virtue). Follows a series of moral choices in regards to the relationship with said man (like breaking off the friendship due to his work/actions, pressing him to stop and turn to faith, following him into this path of vice, etc...), whose consequences are only displayed vaguely - mainly linking it back to faith.

As there isn't a lot of text, and since that text is pretty vague in the descriptions of the woman's past or the man's actions, or consequences in general, I had a hard time connecting to the story or to the characters. The choices are often in clear opposition with one another, often to an extreme (all or nothing, virtue or vice, letting be or push for penitence). I found the whole quite superficial in its implementation - especially with how the good and bad endings were portrayed.

What would you do if the goddess Hera came to spoil your much needed and chill holidays, meant for you to get over your ex? Well... not much, aside from agreeing to her demands - not like you could refuse her demands anyway.

So, you are forced/accept to participated in her schemes, which is to essentially mess with the eternal cheater of a husband: Zeus. You have little to form a plan, however, as you are immediately transported from the sunny and relaxing Greek beach (where you were having ouzo!) to the decadent party on Mount Olympus, to fulfil your mission.

Many paths are open to you, from drinking yourself silly to converse with other godly beings, or just choose to take a detour to refresh yourself for the final "showdown". The results of the path taken are heavily dependant on some of your firsts choices, some with very drastic results (it might be even Tough of Zarf's scale...). If you fail... you will face the wrath of the Goddess, and (Spoiler - click to show)share a similar fate to IO mooo.
It took me a while to get to an acceptable overall path. Granted, I did not choose what might have been a very obvious option at the start of the game.

The prose is fairly light-hearted and full of humour, mirroring what was supposed to be a chill and relaxing holiday - though it keeps the familiar and light tone still as the story gets down to business (hey! it's a party!). A fun game!

Set in your run-of-the-mill fantasy setting, you are a newly made adventurer looking for quests and riches - a small search as a quest lands on your lap pretty quickly: you are tasked to retrieve a precious stone in a cave on a faraway island for a 100 gold.
Nice and easy right? Well...
Obviously, a precious stone in a cave *has* to bring troubles. Follows trials and tribulations for going against the gods/spirits guarding(?) the stone. Fights and wild seas render you momentarily stranded.

The story goes a long a fairly linear gauntlet style narrative, with endings (mainly failures) parsed throughout the game (I found 3 of them). However, depending on your choices, your adventure can be 1/3rd longer than the quest requires... though you can miss it completely if you didn't see the signs (and got a bit sneaky).
While I appreciated this "bonus" content (having missed it entirely the first time around - I thought we were going on another quest next), it made me wonder if there could be other ways to (Spoiler - click to show)deal with the nefarious individual: like forgoing the quest altogether and snitch on him, or maybe fight him because he caught you red handed?

Overall, it was cute.

With its fantasy setting, based on Norse mythology, this textual adventure follows three characters looking for treasures: Sehlif, a charming rogue with slippery fingers, Freya, a powerful enchantress, and Nümgur, a cranky dwarf warrior. Their quest is not without tribulations however, as our protagonists find themselves running and fighting for their lives - having suffered the ire of the Gods.

I liked the D&D-like aspect of the game, with the characters getting special cards for a visual representation (an AI-generated MTG card), the balanced Rogue-Mage-Warrior team on a quest and using their skills to their respective advantages, as well as the different game mechanics (the puzzle, the escape, and the combat).
The game also includes QTE elements for two parts of the story (the escape and combat), with its quite short timer adding a much needed tension to the story (especially the cave!). It still stayed quite accessible, with the text emphasizing on the required action to advance the story

I think my favourite bit of the game was with the enigma/puzzle in the temple. It took me a while to understand the order of things, but it all clicked when linking the code to the story as a whole. Very thematic.

Thrown without warning in the midst of a trial for humanity, you find yourself before a handful of gods, ready to make their judgement, using you as humanity's intermediary. Answer their question and hope to bring the gods to your side... for the good of humanity... or not.

Le Procès de l'humanité is a fairly short game, that includes multiple endings (at least 3 I am sure, having found B and C). The ending is somewhat tied to the trial, though it has a little twist. I saw it coming a bit, but it was still nicely done.

The setting reminded me a bit of the anime Record of Ragnarok, in which humanity must fight the gods to ensure their survival, though the literal physical fight is replaced with exchanges of arguments here. The choice of gods included in the game, from their name to their visual representation, reminded me of American Gods, especially POP.
(Spoiler - click to show)LOL at one of the visual representation with Captain America Trump showing up on the screen

There is an interesting mechanic in the game, in how you answer the gods' questions: with different kinds of approaches (from convincing to joking, or even going full on conspiracy) - with the last option being specific to the god you chose to represent you. Each option will have different effect on the god criticising you, the consequences then neatly represented with stats bar on top of the page.

On the interface aspect, there were a bit of friction with the text display or clicking on available argument options - though the first could be fixed by simply zooming out, and the second becoming clear after clicking on one of the option.
I did like the different screens, their palettes and animations (with SFX!). It gave more character to the... characters, and helped differentiate between each of them.

This was a linear short story where you reminisce about summers from your childhood, and the time you shared with a friend (or was it more?). The entry contains 4 endings, which are dependent on both your choices throughout the game, and one specific choice. Though it is overall linear, your choice will bring quite a bit of variation throughout.

The path I ended up getting was full of melancholy, with the looming unescapable crossroad of adulting ruining everything the magic of summer for those two. Between the want of everything to stay as is and the practicality of things, the writing really portrays how relationship can come and go, and words - written or oral - have more impacts than we think.

Apparently, that ending is one of the saddest one, but it strangely felt satisfying to get (even if I tend to prefer more sweet/good ones). Growing up can suck a lot, and nothing ever stays the same, whether you fight it or not. It felt so meaningful and inline with the choices I had made (granted, I didn’t take the most hopeful ones…)

Also, extra points for the adorable UI!!

I feel like this kind of system sort of exists in real life, with phone lines open to let you scream in the void or whisper your darkest secrets, or many virtual confession booths on the internet. Yet, I'd never considered an actual religious confession booth, absolution and penance included.

There is something eery and creepy about those booth, almost inhuman. Being able to listen to people's secrets, fears and wishes - only to give some sort of automated response in return. To have on the other side one of the most human and touching thing: bearing your heart to strangers. And the inherent wish to connect with others, even through a hotline leading to nowhere.
Each snippet has a heart and scars. It's beautifully tragic, in a way...

In our age of automated process and AI replacing employees, it is not so far fetched to think priests could lose part of their job too to the almighty algorithm (also funny to play as an algo priest) - there are probably very few positions safe from our robots overlords... Though it is interested how it even rendered the whole catholic/christian system obsolete - to the point the Pope resigned!

This was strange. I liked it.

Wow, this one is insane… and I only scratched the surface of what’s in there.
This is an exploration game, mixing parser logics (rooms and navigation, puzzles) with hypertext interface. Inspired by the likes of MUDs, message boards, and defunct MMOs, you are transported inside a dead online game, somewhat broken and defunct, left behind by (dead?) players, in which you can see messages left by its previous inhabitants.

The game is full of layers, from the surface of the game itself, the lore of the game, and the different “storylines” of players (like the one going knees deep into the lore of the game and leaving hints for other players, the one leaving behind diary entries of their life…) on the message boards. There are so many rooms (over 100 according to the game’s page), I started a map to track it all down (see screenshot below), knowing full well it will take me a while to complete it (still hasn’t).

Another fun mechanic of the game is the ability to leave messages in each room. Like the previous players, you can too leave a trace of yourself while playing, even becoming part of its lore.

I already know this will be one of my favourite game of the year!

[I will rate it once I am actually done with it]

This was a short kinetic entry, made in Texture, following Rahel (a witch/sorceress?) and Strider (apostle?) trying to - i think - run away from a hunter. In the background, there are hints of worldbuilding, with some sort of fantasy setting with religious power and witch hunts - though little is revealed in the short playthrough, with the text being very vague about… a lot of things. There is a sense of urgency and uncertainty, with the character being on the run and facing foes.

Though I am still pretty confused about the whole, I liked the little details in the descriptions (like what might be henna on Rahel’s hand?).

I didn’t particularly read the text as horror-y or spy-like either.