IF Comp ’10 – Steve van Gaal’s Gris et Jaune!

Gris et Jaune is French for gray and yellow, as if any of you did not actually know that.  I am just thrilled whenever I encounter something I actually remember from high school French.  Mon ami Chris a dit que le writing dans cette game est bien, dakara, nous le playons!  Vite!  Vite!  Allons-y!  Pain au chocolat!  To the bibliotheque!

[les spoilers sont beginnent ici yo]

Oh boy, a handbill!  That is pretty sweet.

It’s grey here. There is some food. Food is for eating. You should eat the food.
I like this game already.

“Regrét.” The cacophony decrescendos, and it’s just the bees, your ragged breaths, and a sweet voice. “I didn’t think it would be so hard on you, but you need to hear me.”
You didn’t think being buried alive and turned into a voodoo-style zombie would be hard on me?  What is wrong with you, lady?  If you’re after some sort of “what does not kill you makes you stronger” deal, you fucked the first part up hardcore! (Regrét is an awesome name for me, though.  I love it.)

Goddammit, I want those pralines.  I feel I am owed some pralines after what I have been through.

Hmm.  The strange woman wants one drop of the doctor’s blood, eh?  I bet that will not be easily acquired.  Also, I know my character trusts her implicitly, but I am not sure I do.

>eat pralines
You try your best, but you just can’t coordinate your mouth with your throat. A praline gets lodged in your windpipe. You try to cough it up, but you have no luck.
: (

>give money to mambo
She slips a dollar in to her sagging décolletage. “I think I’ve earned this.”
I don’t!  You haven’t done anything yet!

I have to say this game gets points for originality.  This is the first time I have ever been a voodoo-style zombie in 1930s New Orleans that I am aware of.

Huh.  Hit a sub-par ending.  Using the hints.  Oh, man, I am not sure I would have found that piece of bloody muslin.

All right, I am now a zombie with a gun and a fat stack of cash.  Things are looking up!  Shit, there goes another body part.

>x roses
White tulips or red roses? The choice between apology and romance is always difficult.
I like this as a sentence, but I have never found it to be true.  You could very easily work up a flowchart:  “Have you done something requiring apology?  <— YES | NO —>”.  Then again, I’ve also never had angry sex, which people tell me is amazing, so it’s possible I am simply going about this entire human romance business incorrectly.

Baron Samedi’s brother. Once a serial killer who was especially fond of nuns, Baron Kriminel is now less discriminating and will murder whomever he can. When he rides a soul, his hunger for blood grows, and will bite the arms of all around.
That… doesn’t sound very nice.

I’m sure I was not supposed to take the empty bottle of mao dou, but I did (I was hoping Mama John might have written the label), and now it is giving me disambiguation problems in the shack.  Grrr.

She pulls some candy from her pockets, holding it out for you. You wisely push them away.
Even zombies know better than to take candy from strangers, and there are few people in this game stranger than her.  Well, okay, there are rather a lot of people in this game stranger than her, but she’s the only one who’s offered me candy.

You’ve never felt more alone, more friendless. One of your shoulders dislocates, and you pop it back in. You’re rotting, and you don’t even have a soul.
This is no time for self-pity, friendless zombie.  This is time for voodoo!

Yeah, I am pretty far up the hint system’s ass at this point, but I’m enjoying myself.  I really like it when a game takes me somewhere I haven’t been before in a million other games, and this definitely qualifies.

No idea what to do with Agau, and I’ve exhausted the hint system on the topic.  Where is Jim Aikin when you need him?

Huh.  I’m not sure I would have worked out any of these puzzles, partly because it hasn’t been very clear for a while now what my goal is, other than to obtain a human soul and ruin Mama John’s dinner party.  The walkthrough wanted me to ask Gris about someone named Captain DuMarche, then when I did, I convinced Gris to call him, then Gris said he would meet me at Conti and Decatur, so I went to Conti and Decatur…
>talk to dumarche
You have nothing to say.
What the fuck, game?  The walkthrough also told me to kill Gris, which I didn’t really feel like doing (“Mm-hmm, and how long have these voices been telling you to kill?”  “Not voices, dammit, the walkthrough!  The walkthrough told me to kill!”)  Sometimes I wonder if I just require abnormally high levels of direction from an IF game, but man, this one is starting to lose me.  It started so well, too.  Food is for eating.  You should eat the food.

Your resistance, your persistence, your attempts to stop her and to change her mind – raising an army against her; your arguments, cogent or not – never mattered – she just wanted you to try. She created a Zombie just so she would have someone that cared enough to stop her.
THAT IS A SHITTY REASON TO CREATE A ZOMBIE GODDAMMIT

Man.  I really liked this one, and then the sense-making sort of disintegrated, and now I have the younger sister of the headache I remember having after reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved. I did really like it while I liked it, though.  Will score it after the headache leaves.