Reviews by manonamora

Sur l’inévitable is a short, relatively simple parser, where you find yourself prisoner inside an empty sand castle. Through the window, you see an army on white horses ready to charge. You will have to find a way to escape (or stop them) before it is too late.

With its charming retro interface, this game takes us on a gratifying escape adventure filled with illusions. The puzzles are relatively simple (if you enter every room and use the magic action on everything x.x), and if your path crosses enemies, you’ll be teleported right back in your cell, back to the start… with all your inventory and previous actions still there. It’s pretty handy as a mechanic, you get to explore all the rooms without having to worry to re-unlock a door, or pick up an object again. Not just so, but “dying” even ends up helping unlocking other puzzles !

I also like the allegories of the different armies fighting endlessly, and the dreamy and surreal descriptions of the castle and its specter-like inhabitants. It was magical, in a creepy way. I think I understood the mystery setting before getting to the end, but it felt nice being right xD

Lovely work!

L’Orsimonous is an interactive monologue written in Ink, in which you reflect on the concept and changes of the ‘orsimonous’, when you realise your father’s has disappeared. The piece is fairly linear, with the many choices seemingly affecting only the following paragraph (or so). Here, it is more about the mediation of the words than the inherent interaction that is important. As if the text was pushing you to question yourself, on what ‘orsimonous’ could mean, on families and relationships, on the past and the future, on life and death.

As far as I could tell/find, ‘orsimonous’ is a concept created for this IF (I had to double check, just in case), some sort of veil/halo-like thing on the line between metaphysical and tangible, ever-so changing with the person’s moods, feelings, and understanding. Or at least, this is how I took the concept, influenced by the moody blurry animated background. A reflection, maybe of your soul?

There was something captivating with the prose. Simple, maybe even mundane, talking about life. I can’t put my finger on it, so I kept restarting it, trying all the options to read all the different bits of text, hoping to find why. I still don’t know. It was bewitching.

Panique à Mandonez is a fun little mystery game made in Ink, where you play as Camille, the friend of Comtesse de Peyrian who recently disappeared. Taking the first bus to Mandonez, you will do everything to find your friend, and maybe… uncover a darker plot.

It was fun to investigate the village, talk to the different inhabitants, and solve the different mysteries. You need to interact with different elements to get to the next bit of the game (like make a character leave the room to search through it), and the concise prose gives you just enough hint on what you should be doing next*. And, like every good mystery, it has twist on twist on twist!
*when in doubts: pick the options from bottom to top…

It was short, but I enjoyed myself quite a bit. A neat and polished short game.

Only slightly related, but opening a drawer to see Vous trouvez une demi-douzaine de boîtes de calissons. on the screen was so funny to me. Then it made me a bit sad, because it wasn’t real and calissons are delicious…

Croquemitaine is a short Visual Novel following Érika Wolfenstein*, on a mission to retrieve an artifact from a faraway planet. The mission is rather dangerous, but the protagonist is not so worried, being a highly competent and knowledgeable agent. Though your choices are limited, as the game is incomplete, you are given two main paths of action to reach the artifact, each with its own sets of tribulations being introduced… when the game ends abruptly.
*any relation to the video game?

Still, it is possible to parse what to expect from further updates of the game: you will have an adventure (to find and retrieve the artifact), resolve a mystery (what the heck is actually happening on this planet?), and maybe have a romantic entanglement or twenty (you were tasked to seduce the inhabitants for some reason). With the currently intriguing worldbuilding, diverting character, and pretty design, there is quite a bit of potential with this one!
will we be able to smooch the vampires?

Retrouvailles is a multi-POV sci-fi kinetic story created in Twine, part of a larger multimedia universe Mémoires d’un Veilleur/Veillorz. It took me at least 2h to go through it all.
This release is a recounting of two linked events, which one of the protagonist, Jack, mentions to be one of his fondest memory. Following the disappearance of a group of scientist in some far away site, a special task force, led by Jack, is entrusted to investigate the situation. However, the investigation is sidetracked due to past trauma and unresolved baggage, forming and strengthening new relationships. The second event happens a couple of years later, with part of the team returning to the scene of the crime. Those events are told through three POVs (Alex, Jack, and Solène), which you can read separately or synchronously.

Interactivity-wise, there isn’t much to do but go back and forth in the story, change POV, or language. Which makes sense, considering the author categorised the entry as a book on itch. Though, it would have been nice to have some sort of agency, if not in the story itself, maybe in the investigation part (like looking on the site, or running test, or going through the scientists affairs - each with a different POV).

On the narrative side, I was confused for a while about what was happening. Though the mystery is the framing of the story, it often stays in the background of inter-personal issues between the three protagonist (Jack, Alex, Solène), with the location of the event heightening their emotions. Having the different POVs helps framing some situations, especially the past of the characters through their inner monologues.

A romance between two of the characters ends up taking centre stage, pushing the story forward, by the end. This personally made me uncomfortable, due to the strong age gap and power difference, especially with how Jack refers to Solène when trying to flirt with her. Their rekindling in the second chapter, while in character for both of them, didn’t particularly made me wish to root for them.

A neat thing from the prose: it exclusively uses French inclusive writing.

Radio liberté is a short fairly linear Moiki game, part of a series, set in the future where (I think) France may have conquered the world… or at least space. To the dismay of the government, who tries with great difficulty to shut it down, a pirate radio broadcast less-than-rosy news and support for striking workers. In this setting, you play as Hego, an electronic repariman who hates his job and his “tyrannical” boss*, and dreams of being a radio celebrity. You’d leave everything behind if you had the opportunity.
*lol on his name

In this setting, the prose is fairly light-hearted, with the occasional sarcastic comment in that French humour kind of way. There are many references in the text and options, like Jupiter Inter being the futurist counterpart of France Inter, a radio channel. The main reference of the game (and the series at large) is about freedom of broadcasting, which was a political fight in France in the late 70s-early 80s, with the broadcasting monopole being abolished with President Mitterrand.

Anyway, your world turns upside-down when you either decode the strange message coming from your radio from the start or after meeting your favourite radio celebrity - the first choice affect which path you take, but the branches meet back at one same point. That choice, however, ends up being the only meaningful one of the story. While you have other “choices” down the line, they end up being either false choices (just there for variation/move the story along) or forcing you to re-do the choice again until you pick the correct option.

With the entry being a prologue to a supposedly much larger series, it makes sense that the story with little deviation to the main path, as you will need continuity with the following parts of the series. But it would have been nice to maybe have some alternative paths, maybe towards non-canon endings, or making some actions feel like they have more impact.

I’d be interested to see how Hego gets out of the situation he’s currently in.

Le grenier de mon grand-père is a short interactive game, similar to Bitsy in its gameplay: you move a sprite around the screen to interact with the different elements. You are at times given options, either to examine something further or continue a conversation.

In this game, you are an eighteen year old who is snooping around their grandfather's attic, searching for information about his past. This is because he never talks about himself, nor ever allows you to get in the attic. But he's currently away, so you take this opportunity.

In the attic, there are a handful of elements, like stacks of old letters, clothes that you don't remember ever seeing in person or in pictures, and trinkets from your childhood. It is only when you check all of them that you hear your grandfather coming back. Follows a discussion with the man, where you can confront him with what you found.

Because of the branching in the conversation, there is one path that reveals everything, making the puzzle of his past whole(-ish). The grandfather's past is full of tragedies, some of it his own, some of it being just life throwing curveballs. It is clear he is a flawed person, and I felt both pity and distaste for him.

I did wish it was a bit longer, maybe exploring other side of the grandfather's life and his relationships with his children (like your mother, who is mentioned in passing for dropping you off there and not coming back?), or reminiscing maybe on kinder times with the grandmothers or the kids? The conversation bit felt a bit too rushed to have the impact it could have.

A neat game otherwise.

Le Manoir Abandonné is a multi-episode escape game based on the LucasArt game Maniac Mansion, imitating with its images the point-n-click feel. This review continues on the one in the first part.

In the first part, you found yourself stuck inside a manor, and was able to explore the "front" part of the building, with a hallway and a few rooms. During that time, you gets bits and pieces of the former owner of the manor, with hints of a tragic event. This game continues where the previous part left off ((un?)surprisingly you are locked inside this new part), and allows you throughout the game to piece out what happened.

Spoiler for the mystery: (Spoiler - click to show)A brilliant surgeon/doctor loses his wife in a tragic accident. Ridden with grief, he gets in his head that he must find a way to revive her. After many trials and errors, he unearth the body of another young woman who recently died, resembling his wife in some ways, and manages to fulfil his wish... for a few minutes. The revived wife soon turns on her husband and kills him. Still her ghost remains.

This part continues in the same vein as the previous on, in that it is choke-full of puzzles, and different variety at that (as much as a choice-based format allows you). There are many more ways of succumbing to your wrong choices, but the game sends you right back to your previous action (unless this is the last escape bit, when you run out of time, but I'm sure that is a bug). Out of the puzzles included, I liked the putting the torn paper back together, the books in the library, and the unlocking the doors without a key, the most.

Unlike the first part, this game has fewer hints for some of its most important puzzles, forcing you to interact with all of its elements, even if it means dying in the process. It is at times tedious, having to go back and forth between the many rooms because you needed to examine an item multiple times in a row even if it told you there was nothing in the drawer, or finding a key in one section for a door on the opposite side. The frustrating aspect of the game feels very much similar to the old point-n-click games.
It does, however, include a video walkthrough on Youtube.

The horror aspect in this game is cranked up higher, as you start in a hallway with bloody arrows on the many doors and on walls, meet some spectres, have strange visions, and get a few more jump-scares. The ambient sound and sound effects does add to the creepy ambiance.

As for the prose, it follows the tone of the previous part, with its humour and wittiness, playing again on the tropes of the horror genre.

This was a good game and I enjoyed it quite a bit!

Le Manoir Abandonné is a multi-episode escape game based on the LucasArt game Maniac Mansion, imitating with its images the point-n-click feel. This review will only account for the 1st part.

Starting the game with a prologue, the prose plays on horror tropes with the sudden breakdown of your car and that manor looming in the distance as your only place to find potential help, taking a witty approach to those. Once inside the manor (you really have no choice, no matter the other options), the doors shockingly close behind you, leaving you stuck inside the building. Starts then the escape-game portion.

In this first part, you get to interact with the "front" part of the house: a large and luxurious hall and a handful connected but locked doors. Some of the rooms are quite freaky, down to the more obvious horror elements (like blood on the wall).

The game allows you to explore this section of the manor, examine items lying around, and manipulate them through a list of options. There are a handful of puzzles, which are fairly well hinted, even with the curveballs it tries to throw at you. The thing that took the longest was trying out the different keys on the different doors (lots of back and forth).

While I got to the end of the section, which is fairly abrupt, there was still one locked door that stayed locked, even after solving the main puzzle.

Looking forward to play the second section!

La fugue d'un homme-poulpe is a small fantastical Moiki adventure, in which you incarnate an octopus-man stuck on a pirate ship. Though your fate is more alluring than being enclosed in a zoo, you yearn for freedom. With your trusty herring spoon and oyster fork, you will face some trials before you can reach your goal or... chose the wrong answer and end up back where you started. There are 20 endings to find, most resulting in your bad choices.

While short, the prose is witty, veering at time on the sarcasm. The companions allow for a branching of choices down the line, which is neat. The game includes some illustrations, whose different styles don't always match well together, and sounds, which do add to the ambiance of the story.

Nice for an entertaining short break.