Ratings and Reviews by manonamora

Deux ans. follows a conversation between a man and emergency services after an intrusion at the former's home - where he currently is. You play as the emergency responder, trying to diffuse the situation and help the man.

The game is full of tension from the first second of the "call", with a bit of a twist when the intruder can finally be "heard". With vague unsaid, you can imagine what happened two years ago (title of the game) - though it will never be explicitly revealed in the story. There are three endings - one I found more satisfying than the others (and which I got first!).

The game takes advantage of images to visualise the different callers, as well as uncomfortable background sound, to create a captivating and chilly ambiance.

In this mini-entry, you play as Artour, an elf taking part of a protest because the King is at it again with his shenanigans. People are angry, walking towards the castle for (I guess) reparation. You must watch out for the "vouivres" (winged police?), or you'll end up burning to ashes.
Following the Partim500's theme, you can take a little detour and get into some shenanigans yourself. Whatever you do, however, the end is the same.

The writing style is incredible silly and je-m'en-fous-tist - the description of the game does warn you of what is ahead - and includes very unusual words (still unsure if they are part of the "youth" dialect or just made up for the game).
Still, with a good dose of French tradition (protesting and walking to the king's castle for demands) and a fantasy setting, you end up with a pretty funny entry.

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.