Synopsis
Explore the house and uncover your grandmother's secrets.
Help Suzette, an eight year old, getting ready to meet her peculiar grandmother for an outing that afternoon at her as-peculiar job.
About...
La Petite Mort is a short slice-of-life interactive puzzle game originally created for the 2022 French edition of the EctoComp, submitted in the titular category, since its development time was under 4h. You play as little Suzette, on a holiday at her peculiar grandmother, tasked to get herself ready.
The game follows codes of text-adventures, as its mechanical core revolves around solving puzzles, managing inventory, and interacting with the "world". It also includes multiple endings.
When working on this game in 2022, I was pretty worried about the time limit - 4h is very short, and I'd never created anything that didn't require at least a week of development time. Even with extensive planning and timing myself to the second, I was still pretty surprised with what I managed to submit (even with the bugs, oh well). And I wasn't the only one, as the game was praised for the amount of content available.
In 2023, La Petite Mort was remastered, fixing a couple of issues and expanding the explorable "world", to include elements I originally planned but did not have time to include. It was also translated into English and submitted to that year's EctoComp edition.
Awards
EctoComp
- La Petite Mort (French): 1st place
- Le Grand Guignol (English): 5th place
IFDB Awards
- Outstanding French Game: Nominated
Reviews
Overall, I thought it was well-written and looked nice. The grandma is a neat character, very intriguing. And the UI is beautiful.
- Brian Rushton
C'était vraiment très mignon ! La quantité de texte et l'interface soignée sont impressionnants pour 4h.
- Filiaa
Très sympa, progression logique et fluide, on se prend au jeu de remplir toutes les missions données par Mamie.
- Atozi
Ah, the amusing lightbulb moment when you realize the reason for the title. Very cute. I liked Suzette, and just going through the simple tasks and petting animals while gradually learning more about the grandmother.
- officecyborg