#Concours Moiki

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La Révolte des Roses by Gavroche Games

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============= Synopsis

Vous êtes un seigneur de la région de Sargh. Vous avez le devoir de protéger vos sujets, mais qui vous protège de vos sujets lorsque les révoltes arrivent ? Découvrez un nouveau jeu dans l'univers d'Entre le vin et le Dessert !

============= Other Info

La Révolte des Roses is a Moiki game, in French, submitted to Concours Moiki #4. Moiki is a Choice-Based IF engine, requiring little to no code to create games. Its documentation is available in both French and English.

Status: Completed Genre: Fantasy

CW: violence, crude language, sound, use of AI art

============= Playthrough

Played: 4-Sept-2023 Playtime: around 45min (both endings) Rating: 3 /5 Thoughts: The Consequences of Your Past Actions...

============= Review

Set in the same universe as Entre le vin et le dessert, the author proposes another stylised Moiki game filled with mystery and intrigue. As the Lord of the land, you must protect your subjects against an oncoming revolt. You have, however, very few choices before you: fighting head on or try to negotiate. If only things were that easy...

Spoilers ahead. It is recommended to play the game first. The review is based on my understanding/reading of the story.

Following a mundane incident, revolts have spurred around the land. Previous action on your part having failed, they are now marching towards the castle to demand retribution. As Lord of the land, you must ensure the safety of your subjects as well as bringing peace back. Seeking council from your advisors, the Intendant and the Chef des Guardes, you may find things aren't quite as they seem...

Behind the literary prose, the game is more layered than it lets on at first. It is not just the safety of your subject that should matter to you, but your standing with them, and how far they could go to regain some sort of peace. You will need to play through the story a few times to get the whole picture - two playthroughs at least. If not just to find all endings, the intrigue itself left me wanting to know what was going on. After all, time is pressing, and you have little to interrogates those around you for information (assuming you don't already know).

Though the game is fairly linear, with certain events being unavoidable, the game offers enough choices to avoid feeling as if dragged by the story. One of the major choice branches the story in two separate, yet fairly similar paths. There is some interesting investigative interactivity in each path, uncovering quite the secrets, albeit short depending on the sequence of action.

The game has a simple UI, with a single colour background, a few lines of descriptions or dialogue, and a list of choice or arrow to continue. To differentiate between orators and internal thoughts, the game will change the colour of the background, adding sometimes inconsistently a portrait of the relevant orator above their title.

While the main story was quite rounded, I found the final section confusing. Doubling down in the fantastical, the game introduced a new character to set the ending. I thought this was a detriment to the rest of the game, as few to no hints were included ahead. It is still unclear whether the end could be a cliffhanger to a future project or if I just missed something crucial in previous passages. I think the game could have worked just fine without. Still, Ending A felt more thematically on point than Ending B, the latter being the more confusing out of the two.

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Edenia by pat

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============= Synopsis

Sur cette planète lointaine, le calme règne sous le dôme jusqu'à ce que…

============= Other Info

Edenia is a Moiki game, in French, submitted to Concours Moiki #4. Moiki is a Choice-Based IF engine, requiring little to no code to create games. Its documentation is available in both French and English.

Status: Completed Genre: Sci-Fi

CW: Medical alteration, implied mental control, implied death

============= Playthrough

Played: 6-Sept-2023 Playtime: around 30min Rating: 3 /5 Thoughts: Do you truly want to learn why?

============= Review

Edenia is a dry sci-fi game, set on some strange planet, where you play some sort of humanoid character afflicted with strange reoccurring dreams. Aside from your tumultuous sleep, your life is pretty mundane and calm... unless your path takes you somewhere else...

Spoilers ahead. It is recommended to play the game first. The review is based on my understanding/reading of the story.

Built in a Gauntlet-style, Edenia offers multiple paths to reach the many different proposed endings. Set to undergo a routine scan, with an eerie timing around your dreams, you get multiple opportunities along the way to cure your ailments and go back to your life, or dig deeper into those strange occurrences - maybe even uncovering secrets.

Though it is easy to "call yourself to order", especially at the start of the story, the game makes it obvious the path to take, the "winning" state, is the one where you question your ailments and look into the mystery of those dreams. Something is wrong with you, but why? Some medical staff urges you into procedures without much explanations, but for what reason? Other brush off your concerns or try to move you out of the way, but why? It becomes quite transparent you are not supposed to have those dreams, and your changing condition will make it hard for the authority to control.

Still, it was not an easy game to get into, as you are thrown into this world with alien concepts and names without much explanation. The writing itself was quite dry. It was frankly at time disorienting - I wasn't sure if I misread something at the start or whether I was supposed to have played another game before this one. While it does add to the distress you are supposed to feel as this character with out-of-the-ordinary dreams and build on the suspense, it also felt at times tedious to go through.

It was nice the game allowed you to return to a previous choice block if you arrived at an end rather than having the play the whole thing back. It made checking the other options much easier.

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Capitaine Chavire (ou les déboires d'un matou sur la Mer de Lait) by Lilie Bagage

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============= Synopsis

C'est l'histoire d'un capitaine aux longues moustaches, féru d'aventures en mer… Que lui arrivera-t-il avant que la Bonde Divine n'engloutisse tout ? À vous de le décider!

============= Other Info

Capitaine Chavire (ou les déboires d'un matou sur la Mer de Lait) is a Moiki game, in French, submitted to Concours Moiki #4. Moiki is a Choice-Based IF engine, requiring little to no code to create games. Its documentation is available in both French and English.

Status: Completed Genre: Fantasy

CW: use of AI asset, implied death

============= Playthrough

Played: 6-Sept-2023 Playtime: around 45min (2 playthroughs) Rating: 4 /5 Thoughts: An adventure of a lifetime (literally)

============= Review

Capitaine Chavire is a resource management exploration game, in which you play as the captain of a (pirate?) vessel, with the aim of crossing the milky sea. In your exploration, you can recruit new members, must balance your food supply, and ensure the state of your boat. For a final trial awaits you...

Spoilers ahead. It is recommended to play the game first. The review is based on my understanding/reading of the story.

Filled with cat-puns and light humour, Capitaine Chavire ships you on an adventure of a lifetime (potentially literally). After setting up a small crew you sail the Milk Sea in search of treasures, food, and companions. Along the way, you may encounter other ships you can fight against or negotiate with, deserted islands where you can pick up lone crew members or find extra food, and mystical creatures to face.

If you manage to keep enough crew and food, navigating the tempestuous sea for long enough, the game will abruptly call the final trial*. Depending on the crew aboard your ship, you may manage to pass it and fulfilling your dream. I have yet to beat the requirements, always missing something by the end. *I think you need to have clicked on a specific cardinal direction a certain number of times?

While the resource management gameplay is fun, I found the humourous writing to be the highlight of the game. Everything in the game is cat-related. You barter in kibbles, recruit crew whose name will start with Cha/Chat, sail the literal Milk Sea... all to fight a mystical fish. Even replaying was entertaining, as locations and names were randomised at every turn. Speaking of the fish, it reminded me of the Rainbow Fish children's book, with... well... it's rainbow scales. Cute throwback!

Either I'm bad at resource management, or I didn't explore enough, or I just have bad luck, but not reaching a positive end has made me wonder if there is a winnable state with the game or if it is possible to reach it at all. The title of the game, and of your name, Chavire, implies something to capsize. While this could refer to the consequences of the trial if you fail, or the treacherous seas, it could also imply your ship will always capsize no matter what you do.

On day, I'll try to get on this milky sea and try my luck again...

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La Tempête by Mythonirie

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============= Synopsis

Une tempête approche alors que vous êtes enfermé chez vous.

============= Other Info

La Tempête is a Moiki game, in French, submitted to Concours Moiki #4. Moiki is a Choice-Based IF engine, requiring little to no code to create games. Its documentation is available in both French and English.

Status: Completed Genre: Slice-of-Life, Fantasy

CW: weather, ai asset

============= Playthrough

Played: 5-Sept-2023 Playtime: around 20min Rating: 3 /5 Thoughts: There is always something you forget to do before a storm

============= Review

A powerful storm is coming, and you might not have forgotten to fully prepare for it. You expect some damage, but can you avoid it?

Spoilers ahead. It is recommended to play the game first. The review is based on my understanding/reading of the story.

You know there is a storm coming, and, while your abode has withstood harsher weather, you hope to find little damage the day after. Unfortunately for you, the preparation you made were not enough, as disturbing sounds alert you of broken things around the house. Saddened by the realisation of how much must be replaced when surveying the day after and the little care you put in preparing for the storm, you think hard about what you could have done instead and...

...you are sent right back to the beginning of the game. Thanks to some sort of time-travelling powers, you are able to correct your mistakes, and securing better your property. The storm comes and goes, before you will have to inspect the potential damages again.

This looping gameplay will repeat, introducing different element around the house that the storm will target, forcing you to check its condition and prepare for the oncoming storm in the following loop. A few screens will have a timer, choosing the first listed option if the timer runs out. As far as I could tell, there was no failure ending, as the game will continue to restart until all elements are taken care of. It is very merciful game on the player, allowing them ample space for mistake and correcting them.

The UI is made of three different screens: before, during and after the storm, each with its respective colour palettes to align with the background. The background looked strangely pixelated or had a low resolution. The nicest to the eye was the after the storm screens.