Zut alors! The French Comp voting period has already started and I was not aware. So glad a post by @mathbrush alerted me to my oversight.
14 new games en français to discover and savour:
8 Likes
- Les Attinantes (by Korwen)
A stranger in town, you’re excited to see what the residents will make of their religious festival, now that Alikha the Supreme Goddess has ordered all gods to turn away from humanity.
Explore the city, uncover secrets by being in the right place at the right time, get involved with an anti-deist cult, or choose to watch from afar.
Several endings (the “obvious” ending where the game seemed to lead me was quite gruesome, contrasting with the rather pleasant atmosphere of the game until that last scene), an interesting take on the relation of humans to gods, good writing.
I did find a few typos, and a few spots where the links seemed to be overly pixel-sensitive.
I enjoyed this, and I might retry to see more.
4 Likes
- L’héritage de Tatie Lucette (ErwannS)
Oh but this is delightful!
You play the part of a clumsy junior notary who has to divide four objects from the inheritance between seven people who may or may not be entitled to them. Unfortunately, you have just opened a window and the wind has spread all the loose papers of the testament through your office.
By haphazardly reading fragments of the will, and speaking with the deceased’s close ones, you must try to figure out who among them should get which object.
After an hour in-game, make your best guess based on the information you’ve managed to gather.
The fragments of the will and the personal letters of Tatie Lucette are great. This woman has lead an astonishingly, … um …, interesting life. In fact, her adventures and personality reminded me of the exploits of Roald Dahl’s Uncle Oswald.
The interviews show a very diverse group of characters through a broad range of conversational options.
Funny, very well-written, highly replayable, lots of pathways in the conversations. I liked this a lot.
6 Likes
Thank you so much for the comment Rovarsson! My uncle Oswald was actually one of Roald Dahl’s novels I had never heard of, but I was so intrigued by your comment that I’ve already ordered it from my bookseller today - Dahl’s beneficiaries will thank you as well then!
2 Likes
Hello Erwann, and welcome to the forum! I’m glad you found my little mini-review of your game.
I first read it when I was around 10 years old, when I was reading Mathilda and Big Friendly Giant and Dahl’s other children’s books. Let’s just say that was a bit young to understand everything that was going on, although it surely did contribute to my, …ahum… , education…
Apart from the full-length novel, there are a number of short stories (Roald Dahl was a master of the short story form). Taken together, Oswald seems to find himself in all sorts of risqué situations, and although he is a bona fide adventurous man, many of his adventures tend to be a bit piquante.
Just like Tatie Lucette! (Especially with her sphères spatio-temporales… those made me laugh out loud more athan once.)
2 Likes
- Oremus (Narkhos, Stormi)
An engaging old-school adventure set in a medieval abbey, illuminated with charming pixel-graphics.
Easy puzzles, straightforward map, but a joy to explore with good use of temporarily blocked passages. The game isn’t big enough to give the story a lot of time to breathe and simmer, so the demonic horror angle didn’t reverberate in my soul. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it. The structure was right, the beats and switches into darkness felt well placed, if a bit too close together.
Pretty deep implementation too. I was pleased to see so many “unimportant” scenery items with a description that added to the overall atmosphere. Many “failed” actions had helpful replies.
It’s a pity that an important element was left out of the final location’s room description. It’s visible in the graphics, but it’s impossible to tell what the correct noun is from the pixelated illustration. (There’s a dead body in the corner which isn’t mentioned in the text. I tried X HOMME, X FEMME, X PERSONNE, X MOINE, and then I peeked at the walkthrough and saw the guy was dead… → X CADAVRE)
Fun game!
2 Likes
- Le béryl rouge (fuegosuave)
An exploration of syndicalistic labour union in the most harsh of capitalist freetrade circumstances, through the eyes of the manager of a beryllium mining operation.
Although the PC is altogether a bad guy, the player can colour the precise shade of unlikeability (cruelty, cowardice, arrogance,…) through the game’s choices. Some options even allow for a modicum of atonement.
Despite being a bit simplistic in its portrayal of syndicalism and capitalism, showing both in their most extreme form, Le béryl rouge does manage to illuminate a number of different angles in the varying consequences of your actions.
Interesting and thoughtprovoking.
2 Likes
- Le Trajet (paravaariar)
A micro-game that packs quite a punch.
Tight storytelling.
Few locations, all of them sparsely furnished, a small selection of significant details. (The little round window…)
30 minutes to play, if that. But what a depth it plunges to.
And for all that’s made explicit, there is so much more under the surface…
I remember vividly being deeply moved by Les lignes de feu by this author, and Le trajet did not disappoint my expectations. Very good.
1 Like
- Des lits pour eux (GutereuxMarde)
Dragging a cadaver in a sac through the wilderness, trying to find a spot of remaining clean ground to bury it in.
Des lits pour eux is strong in its haunting atmosphere and a general feeling of hopelessness. Intentionally or not, this is reflected by the aimlessness of the gameplay. At the end of each paragraph, a new set of unclued choices threatens to plunge you deeper into danger.
This game made me feel like I was solving a dungeon-maze without markings, stumbling blindly and then failing. I haven’t found pure land yet, so I must carry this dead body once again through the darkness.
Cruel and darkly moody.
Edit: Forgot to shout “Timed text! Aargh! Clicking or pressing [space] shows the full page, but even that lags just that infuriating extra half-second.”
1 Like
- La Zizanie (Atozi)
Butt-clenchingly tense, this zombie survival game. Time passes each turn, each click is a decision for you but also an opportunity for the zombies to get closer or break into another villager’s home. Flee, search for weapons, recruit your neighbours? Which will it be?
The best trick in this game is that when your current PC is zombified, you jump over to the next villager. This gives you a new chance to save yourself and your neighbours, but with one more zombie (the previous PC) to deal with. And so on, until you succeed in saving at least your current PC and perhaps some others. Or fail completely, leaving a town full of wandering living dead.
Several playthroughs are needed to learn where the weapons are, and especially to get to know the villagers. Who is helpful, who needs convincing, who might even actively cross you?
Tight, tense, thrilling.
Edit: I just saved the entire village in my last playthrough!
3 Likes