Ratings and Reviews by manonamora

*La réclusion de Callisto* is a short textual adventure in the style of older CYOA books, both in form and content. Embodying a prisoner-jailer in a lonely island, you will recount your meeting with a very particular women sent to this prison. Mixing romance and unsatisfiable desires, the story pulls you into moral conflicts where your only solace is escape.

Though there are conflicting elements, I was certain from the start the tale was referencing Napoléon and his exiles on Elba/St Hélène, being sent away in a tiny island away from everything because of his actions. But this was clearly set in some imaginary land, with a focus more on piracy. And of course, Napoléon was the actual prisoner during his exile, not really the jailer.

As for the delectable prose, it was more the tales of Dumas, especially the imprisoned scenes, that came into mind while reading. Even with the limitation in words, and the surprisingly large variation of the text, the writing is flourishing and swallowing us into the whirlwind of emotions felt by the PC. Though there are only three ends, the journey is more fun than the end.

*Terra’s Leap : Un rêve incombustible* is a short sci-fi adventure, where we follow the ventures of Elio, a child in a faraway colony, dreaming that one day he will visit Earth. Earth's location being long forgotten, this task is not an easy feat! Thankfully, you get to meet multiple characters who have an idea about its location, though none are in the same spot. So you will need to decide how to get to it, considering you are still a child, and which person to trust, our of those strangers. Some of these choices do require you to sort of disregard logic, if you want to continue down those paths.

While the blurb indicate 19 endings, many of them end in the exact same way. Most of those are still pretty bad for the players as well - strangely, it is when you refuse to take the path pushed by the game that you end up with a more winning situation.

*Baston ou Ruse : L’Épopée de Krug* is a short humoristic game based on Warhammer 40k, where you play as Krug, an orc that has no idea with what to do with its life. Though known for their brutish behaviour, some orc find a more cunning approach to conflict more interesting. So choices are put before you at every turn: Ruse or Force. Depending on what you pick, you'll end up with one out of 16 different orc job (and its related epic end where your life is praised still after your death).

The writing is very funny and made me laugh many times per path. It was very entertaining trying to find all the different endings (I found 8-9), since the text is quite varied from the branching. And this I knew nothing about W40k lore, it was a fun and intriguing introduction to this universe!

Biblioflam is a short fantasy adventure in Moiki, where you play as an employee of a strange and magical library (where no books can be burnt!) tasked with retrieving late book returns (the tome in question being 3 years late...). Mixing more RPGs aspects, like dice rolls, and consequential choices, the game offers a frustrating but still satisfying puzzle to solve (even if you mess up a bunch, it's still fun to play).

With the change of palette/fonts depending on the current environment, and SFX/background sound to add to the ambiance, the game is really playful and fun to experience. You too will ask to retrieve more tomes after!

Susi is a sci-fi story, set in the 22nd century, where we follow the eponymous character, a half-wolf half-humanoid AI, after feeling a bloody conflict against salamanders (also half-AI) that ravaged everything. Seemingly the last of its kind, Susi get to choose the path forward, whether it is destructive for themselves or the salamander, or more (re)constructive. 5 different endings can be found, I managed 4.

Through the POV of Susi, the story explores crudely different human traits (vengeance, avarice, goodness, etc...), showing that even with the disappearance of the human race, and the evolution of the AI in such a way they've left machines behind, the humanoid beings would continue to behave exactly like humans, with their vices and virtues, rather than the animalkind they embody (or a completely different path). Like ghosts, humans still stay, one way or another, influencing those left behind.

Similarly to the bad paths, who often rambled on and repeated itself, the good ending wasn't much satisfying either, having a bit more of an open end to the story, somewhat giving the feeling that the story only actually started at that point, with the passages preceding the final screen upping up the intrigue.

The author also warns on the game page that some passages could be difficult to read, as it alludes to sensitive subject, but the allusions is actually explicit (stated or depicted) and the execution felt more "edgy for the sake of being edgy" rather than making it central to the plot or having commentary on it: (Spoiler - click to show)suicidal thoughts can be willed away or push Susi into destructive suicide, sexual slavery is mentioned in passing once and almost forgotten, living under a dictatorship is played as a twist so to try to force you to take the "high-road" and forgive the oppressor