Thank you very much for the review @AmandaB . I really like Lady of Shallott so nice to hear it has a similar vibe.
Thank you for the review! It sure was nice to read these kind words first thing.
Thank you so much for this wonderful review, Amanda! I’m very happy that you enjoyed it and also about your enthusiasm for the cover!
I barely had time to test and balance it and thought it was way too difficult. Glad to see that’s not the case. This is probably the first game where I planned more than I programmed. Also, I did away with anything complicated that I couldn’t estimate. So the programming effort was modest, but it’s nice to see that it doesn’t feel that way!
In the Blink of an Eye by @manonamora
Great cover art again.
This is a meet-cute swirled into The Hunger Games– one of those surreal games where you never have any idea what’s going to happen, because anything could happen. It’s a modern fairy tale. Good story, solid writing, and some serious WTF moments. I kind of wish it wasn’t a Petite Mort and was a longer story, because I wish I knew what happened next, or why all this occurred. Always good to leave 'em wanting more! And it’s a prodigious amount of story and choices for the time limit. My continual surprise at how much people can do makes me wonder if I’m just really slow.
Thanks, Amanda~!
I had a whole plan that was 3x as long, which I thought was completely doable in 4h lol
I’ve continued to write part of it after the deadline/submission, so it’s possible you might end up see more of this down the line.
Taller Tech Mauler Mech by @aschultz
I should have known all along that Andrew Schultz is a disciple of Dr. Seuss, but this only became clear in another review thread a few weeks ago. Yet again we have a ridiculous Seussian world with an enemy to defeat through clever wordplay. For some reason my brain does not do rhymes well, so I always resort to the walkthrough pretty quickly because the way I do rhymes is to lawnmower through the alphabet, doodling all the words that could rhyme, which often are A LOT, and by the end I’ve pretty much forgotten what I’m trying to do. But this is not, of course, a criticism of Andrew, whose prose is always goofily lyric, who knows how to milk a joke, and whose implementation is always solid. If you are a rhyming wordplay lover, his games are must-plays for you.
THAT WHICH IS EXEMPT FROM RESURRECTION by Swanchime
This requires you to download an emulator, which I’m not going to do for a Petite Mort, especially when my first experience with this author was of torturously slow timed text that killed my enthusiasm for the game. I’ll definitely check out other reviews of this game, though.
Ah Lim’s Chicken Rice, #01-08A by @Kastel
I loved this. The first part made me hungry, and the second part made me cry. A sweet and sad ghost story with a twist, with beautiful writing and the most solid sense of place I’ve seen in any Petite Mort this year. Total mimesis in such a tiny game, a great achievement. My only problem with it was the lack of much interactivity other than clicking through, but in a Petite Mort, sacrifices must be made, and my sense was that the author prioritized story and writing over interactivity here. A solid choice, because the story and writing were so well-done and moving. Thanks for this little gem, Kastel.
Thank you for the kind words.
Yep, although I have been trying to write minimalist stories for a while and prune as much excess as I can. The idea is that once I allow myself to write a bit more freely, I know what is essential and what isn’t (including interactivity).
For this work though, I probably spent more time learning how Hainanese chicken rice is cooked…
Zombie Eye: Campfire Tales by @dee_cooke
I tested this (which makes me both resent and admire Dee for planning wisely enough to have time for testers). Like all Dee’s games, it has cool Adventuron-style graphics and it’s a tight and fun story. Very Halloween, with monsters aplenty, including Dee’s own gross Zombie Eye returning for a sequel from last year.
You’re welcome! I really loved the game.
So not only did you write a good game, you got a good recipe out of this? I really need to plan my Petite Morts better so I get something out of them besides stress.
The Labyrinthine Library of Xleksixnrewix by @Draconis
I tested this. I hate to out Daniel like this, but in the interests of fairness everyone should know that he has 4 heads, all with encyclopedic knowledge of Inform, ninja-like programming skills, and the ability to work independently of each other. Also he has 8 arms with lightning-fast typing fingers. I propose a rule for future Petite Mort comps: any authors with the unfair advantages of extra heads and arms either get a quarter of the time, or must restrict themselves to the use of one head and two arms like the rest of us mere mortals.
All this is to say that yet again, he has written a puzzle game with a big map and fun mechanics that may take you hours to solve… and he did this in less than 4 hours. I know it was less, because I tested it, which means he had plenty of time to address tester issues.
…grumbles with jealousy, gets reviewer face back on…
It’s fun; it’s great; it’s hard.
And finally, a word on my game, The Dying of the Light
Writing this was therapy for me, and unfortunately I’ve inflicted it on everyone here. Writing the game was like letting out a big poisonous burp that’s been blorping around in my stomach for a long time, and that’s all good. It’s untested and probably has a lot of problems, but because it’s so personal, people might feel like they can’t criticize it for all its flaws. My message to you here is: criticizing my game is not the same as criticizing me or my mother or my hard year, and I know that, so no need to tiptoe around my fee-fees.
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And that’s all the Petite Morts, I think!
This was a very strong year for itty-bitty games; I encourage everyone to snack on them freely.
Thanks for reviewing (and testing) Amanda - and well done for getting through all the Petite Morts so quickly!
The Zombie Eye will return
Even if submitted to Le Grand Guignol, End of History is a Petit Mort contentwise (the translation and correction effort pushed it out of the category). You might want to check it out (I would certainly love to get your review!)
Of course! I’m afraid I’m stuck, though. I tried 1517 both with the tablets in the void, and and the computer key-- trying both Arabic numbers and Roman numerals, but no dice. I tried variations on 95 (from the 95 theses), and I also tried variations on Martin Luther. I don’t see anything else that could be a code. I thought possibly the blank parchment paper would show me Roman numerals I’d inserted into the void, but no. I’m kind of out of ideas. Is there a walkthrough?
Hmm roman numeral should do the trick. Eventa are randomized, though. Check on the screens if it’s still the same year.
Also, please note that the blank tablet works as Enter key, insert it after the number!.
Huh. It’s the same year, but it won’t take it in roman numerals. I checked online to make sure I had it correct-- 1517, MDXVII-- and tried it both upper and lower case, and get INVALID CODE. Could this be a bug?
I haven’t been able to finish this one—playing the downloaded version in an interpreter, it wouldn’t recognize site scissored as a valid command, so I immediately got stuck. I tried the online version and it didn’t have that issue, but it won’t recognize ho hum, so now I’m not able to progress past that point. Were you able to play the whole thing?
Site scissored worked fine for me in the “play online” version. Maybe Andrew uploaded a fix there?