There is one way to win! I can pm you if youād like 
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Yes please!~
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The real secret is less impressive, Iām afraidāmost of the puzzle planning was done on paper, so not counting against the time limit (moving coins around on a grid in different ways), and most of the mechanics actually come straight from published extensions! All the room-layout stuff is Dynamic Rooms by Aaron Reed, the adventurersā logic is Dijkstra Pathing by Daniel Stelzer, and the automap is Dynamic Automap by Daniel Stelzer.
So the vast majority of the four hours was spent on writing up all the room and book descriptions. Iām glad you had fun with them!
2 Likes
Still, just that crammed in under 4 hours 
also 
, the listed authors for the extensions, itās almost just you
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Thanks for playing and reviewing! And glad you found the winning path in the end 
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Only three left in La Petite Mort category. Then 15 more in Le Grand Guignol. And then about 20 Bare-Bones to do~
Also, Iāve been queuing the reviews on my Tumblr and the IFDB, with a tad more substance and better sentence structure.
Your Body a Temple, or the Postmodern Prometheus by Charm Cochran
Summary: Oh, my dear, theyāve destroyed you, havenāt they? They could never understand a being such as yourself.
Not to worry. Weāll build you a new body, with which you will take your revenge.
Thoughts: Build-a-bear but make it monster and also yourself. And also pretty creepy.
It was fun to try to be one specific kind of āmonsterā or mix-and-match between the different parts given (min-maxing the stats was fun!). The responses from each options are quite playful and with lots of charm. While part of me wishes it was longer (control yourself with this new body and interact with other people), it is also quite perfect the way it is now.
2 Likes
~ ~ ~Into Darkness~ ~ ~ bu Jacic
Summary: Straying into darkness is easy, returning is far harder. What lurks in the ancient forests where mortals should fear to tread?
Thoughts: Light-horror poem about walking in the woods, with a bit of a Romantic vibes. I liked how the different lengths of the lines made the cadence a bit wrong (which adds to the horror bit). While there are difference choices, it seems like the end is always the same (how do you get the other ends?). Having a fear meter in the on the main page felt a bit distracting, as the poem holds on its own just fine.
Pretty impressive for just 4h.
EDIT: Keep track of what choices you picked and which order. It is indeed possible to reach the other 3 endings and get all achievement, but you need to be bit smart about it 
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Last La Petite Mort entry on my list is a parser.
Taller Tech Mauler Mech by Andrew Schultz
Summary: An ad for an all-night retro-fest at Chuck E. Cheese on Halloween. All those video games to play! For a flat fee! You havenāt been, forever. There are a few that just arenāt the same on MAME. Like Robotron, which freezes up if you try too-fancy moves too often.
Thoughts: First time playing an Andrew Schultz rhyme game*, so had no idea what to do at first. Went to download and check the walkthrough to get the gist of the puzzle (a.k.a. make rhymes matching the name of the room instead of using regular commands). The alliteration is pretty fun, but very difficult, imo*. Because it was done in such short time, there are no hints/help (but there is a downloadable walkthrough) to get to the next phase. Itās a lot of the guessing game there.
So I ended up following the walkthroughā¦ and got stuck. The Ho Hum command doesnāt seem work, so the next āeventā isnāt triggered. Final score: 14+1/23
But the premise is very silly, and the writing is funny!
*ESL tearsā¦ 
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THAT WHICH IS EXEMPT FROM RESURRECTION by swanchime
Note: this game seems to only be playable on Android devices, or requiring an emulator. I luckily have an Android phone, so I did the risky thing of downloading and installing from an unknown source FOR SCIENCE!!
Youāre welcome
Summary: nothing is exempt from resurrection: THE SWAMP RAMBLINGS OF A MAD SCIENTIST
Thoughts: This is a short VN where you seem to be reviving someone, and ramble on like a crazy person about your past, and why you revive them? The prose is quite cryptic and nonsensical at time (which is very much that authorās style). It also seems like a sequel to wretched star, I think? (which I also found super confusing). I didnāt get itā¦
In the Blink ofā¦
Yeahā¦ the joke is running stale now
La Petite Mort - final thoughts
Iām going to share @AmandaBās sentiment about this yearās batch of mini-games, in how impressive the entries were in terms of length or gameplay mechanics. 4h is a very short amount of time to make something happen, so for every one who tried and submitted.
Not everything was scary (Iām not mad about it, I can only handle so much horror), quite a few entries were very sad*. But all of them were pretty interesting in either their take on horror, or gameplay.
Onto the Grand Guinols!
*so was the IFComp as well!
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Put-Peepā¢ by PMar!owe/Sean Huxter
Summary: The rules are simple. Someone hides the Peepā¢. Itās your turn to find it. Then you Put-Peepā¢ the next person on the list. But also you have bugs to fixā¦
Thoughts: This is a fun short parser, with a bit of a surreal aspect to it while playing on horror tropes. You get back to work late at night because thereās a darn bug to fix, and also to mess with your colleagues. Of course, you hear strange noise, because itās an empty building in the middle of the night, and the closer you investigate the weirder it becomes.
The writing is pretty fun, and you even get extra commentary while playing. I needed to use the walkthrough once for the middle puzzle (yay for in-game walkthroughs!), but the rest was pretty simple. It was a fun time!
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Haunted House for Social Phobics by Stewart C Baker
Summary: When you signed up for the haunted house tour, you were expecting chills and thrills and jump scares. What you got was something far, far more terrifying.
Can you survive being continually thrust into awkward social situations?
Thoughts: This game made clear that this was about having social anxiety and how it affects you. You are told of or experience situations where you are forced to interact with other people, some of them being awkward to down right embarrassing. Still, even with the disorder plaguing your life, you go to a haunted house activity to be able to win some cash. And while you can go about, exploring some rooms, meeting some long-forgotten acquaintances, maybe helping someone and getting a treat, ā¦ the game suddenly threw me off, changing the scenery and ending abruptly.
My theory on this: You were always going to get some help at the doctorās office, but your brain just made up a whole weird spoopy scenario to get you there, and get you the help you need. But it really felt like whiplashā¦
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Last one for today~
Dark Communion by Tabitha OāConnell
Summary: Two teenage girls. One abandoned church. ??? survivors.
Thoughts: Moody abandoned church? check! Two kids with not enough fear to know better? check! Spooky shenanigans? check, check, check!
The game plays like a horror movie, where dumb kids do something they shouldnāt, stumble on a weird thing that means them hard, and try their best to escape - hopefully intact.
The writing is very moody and creepy and the pace is pretty quick, giving you little space to breathe (you have to act now or elseā¦). But if you make the wrong choice (which will happen often), and reach a bad end, you can undo the last one and try something else. There are many ways of failing the game, but since the game is short, getting back on track doesnāt take too long. Makes for fun replays!
Anyway, going back to hunt the last of the achievements~
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EctoComp says 14 left to rateā¦ remove 2 because those are mine. I should be done tomorrow?
Next up:
ĆhfwĆ«rhld by bruhstin
Note: this was also submitted to the Bare-Bones Jam
Summary: Inspired by a dream.
Thoughts: The horror aspect is pretty strong there, especially at the end. The pace starts slow, but picks up pretty fast (I was holding my breath at the end). Thereās enough hints during the first half of the game to see where the twist is going, but itās subtle enough to leave you confused until the reveal. I could have seen the ending being you donāt make it out alive and it āeatsā you too to push the horror even further.
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Good Bones: A Haunted Housewarming by Leon Lin
Summary: In this haunted house youāll run the gamut of danger from A to Zā¦
Thoughts: What a riot of a game and so so well done. The writing is hilarious and had me wheezing with at every passage. The premise is honestly insane and so absurd (also fixers-uppers are not always the way to goā¦), and it is just so fun essentially running around the house, trying to survive the insane amount of danger in this house (realtors are always susā¦ of course, theyād downplay everything), dying, respawning, trying something else, and repeat.
Even if it looks simple, this was such a polished entry! I really enjoyed playing this game! Laughed so hard it hurts.
Some extra fun gameplay things:
- the game includes check points to āundoā your action, and indicate the option that lead you to your death
- the endings. Trying to collect them all was a hoot and half, and each ending title was just a joke by itself. There are 25 to find (unless there are more hidden endings).
The witch and the vampires were the most funny thing I encountered
2 Likes
Iām glad you enjoyed my game so much! Thanks for playing it and writing your review!
As for the endings, there are 27 in all, including the true ending.
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Roads of Liches by Andrew Schultz
Summary: You note an after-dark dafter ark. You are promised loads of riches ā¦ and you walk through. There are roads ā empty at first, but then liches run you off them, to a parkā¦
Thoughts while playing: Oh boyā¦ another word play game. Oh yay, I think I get the mechanic! Oh noā¦ Oh, right that makes this word out loud! Ha-AH! I found that one in the first tryā¦ Ok, letās just check the walkthrough real quick cause I have no ideaā¦ And now Iām lost (downloading the map)ā¦ Ok, done that, and that, and thatā¦ How to I move those sheep now? Oh-huhā¦ I think I got myself suckā¦
In her review of Andrewās other entry, Amanda thought he was a disciple of Dr. Seuss. And, from my little knowledge/exposure of Seussās work, I think this entry makes it more obvious than Taller Tech Mauler Mech. Itās very whimsical in terms of the gameplay, and absurd when you look at the prose. When you donāt, itās pretty frustrating (and you feel a bit dumb). But when you get it, itās really fun (and you feel so darn smart). Anyway, I gave up after getting 23/50-53 as a score, but not before I scooped my brain out of all my guessing cells!
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Thank you for playing and sharing your thoughts! And I agree with your suggestion for pushing the horror further, I might go back and add in some more stuff once the jamās over
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End Of History by n-n
Note: This was also submitted to the Spanish EctoComp, in the La Petite Mort category (but Iām bad at Spanishā¦)
Summary: An interdimensional visitation narrative.
Thoughts: Short but a neat puzzle about numerology. Once you figure out what part goes where, itās pretty simple to reach the end. The lesson here: donāt mess with time.
A super ironic thing that happened: I got the French Revolution as the event to fix up
Unrelated, but my bachelor thesis was about The End of History by Fukuyama, so the title made me giggle a bit.
5 Likes
Not totally unrelated! The title was a bit of an afterthought; noticing the magazine issue that anchors the story in time was published the month before the Berlin Wall fell, the Fukuyama reference seemed to wrap the whole thing up nicely.
Edit: thanks for reviewing, awesome thread!
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