Cahors Sunset

Cahors Sunset is a text-based game of choice. You are in control of Valentin Puget, an old man living in Cahors, France who is in his twilight years. Try to make the right choices and make him cheat death for as long as possible. [h1][b][u]Design & Art[/u][/b][/h1] Design is kept conceptual. Cahors Sunset features a dynamic background of credited pictures from various sites in sephia tones. These pictures change while playing the game. Overall, the visuals are only there to create a certain mood for the background story aswell as the whole premise of Cahors Sunset. [h1][b][u]Controls[/u][/b][/h1] The game is completely controlled by mouse. [h1][b][u]Sound and Music[/u][/b][/h1] I remember a fitting background music for the videogame. Some light classical pieces were playing and they enhanced the mood of the game. Other than that, there is no sound in the game. I believe you can turn off the music if you wish to. [h1][b][u]Gameplay[/u][/b][/h1] Cahors Sunset is played through choice. Valentin Puget will start at the age of 65 and you need try to get him as old as you can. For every month, you will make a choice between different options, that will influence his stats (mood, money, weight, anxiety, social life and physical health) either positively, negatively or completely mixed up. Cahors Sunset starts you with random stats, the main point is, that you must keep his stats above a certain margin, otherwise, if one of the stats is under that crucial margin, he will face the chance of death. For every intentional choice you make, one random event will happen, whether that will have a good or bad influence on your playthrough is up to the game. Besides that simple mechanic, the game features a fleshed out background story of how the life of Valentin Puget came to be. Every month you will discover another piece of his past. [h1][b][u]Weakpoints[/u][/b][/h1] Cahors Sunset lacks replayability. Once I completed the game once, I did not feel the need to play through it again. Thankfully, the background story is skippable, for those of you who want to reach the top of the leaderboards. Besides the neat mechanic and the very detailed storyline, there isn't much else to this game. Fortunatly, that is compensated for its price. Just be aware of the fact, that Cahors Sunset is a very small game that might not entertain you for longer than two hours tops. [h1][b][u]Concluding Thoughts[/u][/b][/h1] Cahors Sunset is a neat little game. It showed me with what difficulties seniors have to deal in their everyday life and how important it is to cherish your last memories and moments while you are still alive. Because once we die, we all just become dust but we want our memories to be forever set in stone. The game entertained me for as short as it was and with its challenging premise really awakens a sort of spirit inside me. I felt attached to Valentin Puget and a rush of sadness embraced me, when I realised, that this could very well be the fate of any person in the world. The game exists less for its gameplay and more for its meaning. If you enjoy games, that make you want to see the bigger picture, I can safely recommend this game to you.

Like me, you probably read the description of Cahors Sunset and quickly decided whether you were interested or not, and if the concept didn't grab you outright, I doubt it will win you over even with its many charms. In Cahors Sunset you play Valentin Puget a 65 year old French man, with the goal of keep him as healthy and happy as possible as he approaches man's inevitable end. Each month you are presented a choice of three activites for Valentin to perform. Each choice will affect his six attributes, anxiety, social life, mood, weight, money, and physical health. For example, going to Paris with a friend may raise your mood, and social life, but will be a large blow to your wallet. If any of your attributes fall below 25, you put Valentin at risk of death. Some events however, are out of your control. These seemingly randomized events will yield a loss or gain to your attributes, but even when things don't go your way the consequences are measured enough to avoid feeling cheap. As each year passes and Valentin ages you will take a penalty to your attributes, and be given a choice to select a new year's resolution which will passively affect your stats every month. Vowing to travel less may slightly increase your funds but lower your social life. The light RPG mechanics work well enough, but to me the story is really the games main draw and it delievers it well. As each month game unfolds, you will uncover snippets about Valentin's life, loves and loss. It begins with the story of his parents, and makes its way to present day. The game also sets the stage with current events unfolding in 20th century France. The game was clearly made on a budget, but the developer made smart decisions for the presentation which bolster the solid writing. Each screen has a backdrop of a beautiful photo from France, taken from Flickr. Although they are all from different artists, they feel surpsingly cohesive and are unified with a Sepia filter. The royalty free music chosen blends well the photography, making for a languid, melancholy atmosphere. I wish perhaps though, the photographs could have been credited strictly in the credits. Its a minor complaint, but something about Flickr being referenced outright when I'm in 1960s France is a little mood breaking. Also a zooming effect performed on some of the the photograpy leaves a strange rippling effect which can be a bit distracting. It could be an issue with my monitor though. I suppose now the its time to ask the question lingering the back of everyone's minds when discussing these more expiremental games. Is it any fun? Well, I don't know if "fun" is neccesarily right word to apply here. I think instead I would choose to say that Cahors Sunset is "affecting". I can't ever recall imagining what it's like to be an old man 1960s France, or the last time a game made me really and truly think about aging and how I will look back on my own story in the years to come. To me that makes Cahors Sunset a success, and I'm glad I got the chance to experience it. Again, it's difficult to recommended this anyone who is not intially open to the concept, but if you find yourself among the curious, I think you should give it a try. If you like, check out my first impressions video on the game below. https://youtu.be/5ZjKgQWGXSU

This is (was) a sad game about an old man making a living for himself during the final years of his life, just trying to do daily things until the inevitable would happen. Unfortunately, this game has also gone down the same route and is now unplayable (just fails to start up) so don't spend your money on this one. It was a good idea for a game though.

This is another hippy barista art-school dropout exhibition dumped onto Steam. It's not really a game. Telling the story of some old French guy, click on random bits of text to cobble together some story. The decisions you make seem just as random as the outcomes... no skill or logic will assist you, it's just a random crap shoot. Rolling a dice would give you the same chances of success. So even if old french man simulators were a popular thing, this would be one of the worst ones. This doesn't really qualify as a game of any kind, so I can't recommend it. Hopefully the developer is back to work, so I'll have a tall skinny latte, thanks. Hopefully they're better at pushing the button on the machine in Starbucks than they are at developing "games".

Totally a depression simulator... My mood decreased in only 30 minutes. The photographs, music and subject are interesting but; this is a game you play only once and don't want to play anymore without a friend. You really like the old man in the game, try to make his life perfect. Eventually, you realize that money brings happiness. I sadly say no.

Human life is not as fragile as ‘Cahors Sunset’ makes it out to be. At least that’s something of a lasting impression that was left on me, for what it’s worth. I was left with little choice but to put aside the fact that the developers intended for us to play the role of an old man. Quite simply, even though I make his decisions, I don't feel as though I [b]am[/b] him. Decisions made by the player and random events can affect the old man's attributes by increasing or decreasing their values. An example of this is an event in which a pigeon defecates on the old man's head. Now, we’re led to believe that this sort of event is supposed to worsen someone's mood. I don't know about you, but if I was an old man and this happened to me I would probably laugh it off after cleaning myself up. It's not the end of the world, but in ‘Cahors Sunset’, these sorts of insignificant events are supposed to have lasting effects. That is, unless they're mitigated by some other decision and its corresponding effects. One must also keep in mind that if an attribute’s value is less than 25, there is a chance that the old man will book a one-way trip to rigor mortis. Numerous situations like this are likely to leave one thinking throughout this experience, ‘If it were me, I just wouldn’t have this kind of overblown reaction’. There is a strange sense of disconnection as a result. Given the frequency in which I encountered events involving faeces, one has to wonder if the developers were just having a laugh. In fact, it was the repeated defecation on the old man's head and his inability to avoid stepping on dog doo-doo that led to his unfortunate demise at the relatively young age of 71. I guess that after all of that poop, he just really didn’t want to live, quietly and tearfully doing away with himself in solitude. I must say that the animals of France must really have it in for this old man. In between making decisions, I enjoyed reading about the old man’s past, which I believe may be part of the developers’ plan to make some sort of emotional impact on the audience. However, as a whole, ‘Cahors Sunset’ is more of a ‘numbers game’ than anything else. A numbers game where the odds may very well be stacked against you and before you know it, it’s death by poo.

Do not buy this, it doesn't launch. It should be reported for being broken and taken down from the store. Adobe AIR error: "This application has an invalid application descriptor. Try re-installing or contacting the publisher for assistance."

Well, that's a cheap game so I guess you shouldn't expect much in the first place. Unfortunately I'm giving this thumbs up not because I enjoyed it very much but mainly because there are enough bad reviews already and this game is not actually bad. It's not too good either. The idea behind the game is nice, that's a very light life-simulator of an old man, you make decisions and and they affect your stats, and you have to raise your stats as much as possible. That's pretty much it. Very light and casual, and maybe you should buy it on sale of you may enjoy this type of game. Unfortunately the game doesn't live to its potential, which it does have, in my opinion. Every game, as simple and minimal as it is, and with the weakest (or complete lack of) gameplay, can still leave a positive impression with a good story. Cahors Sunset does have a story, and even though the game is pretty much a slideshow of pictures it could quite much get to me completely with a good story. The opportunity wasn't taken, though, and the story is rather generic, with short, laconic sentences which don't really get to you. The choices you're making, also don't really make up to one whole story, and actually have not much of a connection to each other, but they quickly become a random mess of events which in more "advanced" levels even start repeating itself. Well, shame on me, as this is a 'thumbs up' review and I mainly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about the game. I still believe that the concept is good and that it's OK for casual sessions of 5-10 minutes if you're like me and usually don't have HOURS to spend playing. And as I said in the beginning, this game is not actually BAD. It just doesn't go far beyond this level, even though I feel it could. Which is also a shame.

Decent concept, but execution is a bit wonky. Choices doesn't seem to matter consistently over time, just affects the stats when the choice is done. I can't really recommend the game at this point, but if you got a few bucks to spare and you're looking for something different, give it a shot. It's a pretty unique experience.

You are the old man making choices on how to live on through life. This game is much more of something you choose in order to stay alive, and whatever you choose you either gain or lose something (such as anxiety, mood, physical health, money, etc.). You need to keep status above 25, lower than that will risk of death. The game is actually interesting, this is more of a survival game and theres apparently global ranking. So see if you can live out the longest than anyone in that score if you are up for it. You'll have to be smart on what choice you make, otherwise you will have a hard time going through choices that keeps you going forcing you to lower your status in order to gain another. Luck is also involved when you select your choice, so prepare whats coming to you. Anyways, 10/10. Would try again if i feel like it. And regardless of my game time, i was rather new to it and did it only one go. It gets harder eventually, so prepare yourself if you are buying this.