''Savoir-Faire'' is a piece of

interactive fiction Interactive fiction (IF) is software simulating environments in which players use text Command (computing), commands to control Player character, characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narrati ...

written by

Emily Short Emily Short is an interactive fiction (IF) writer. From 2020 to 2023, she was creative director of Failbetter Games, the studio behind ''Fallen London'' and its spinoffs. She is known for her debut game ''Galatea (computer game), Galatea'' (200 ...

, about a magician in 18th-century France searching his aristocratic adoptive father's house. It won the Best Game, Best Story, Best Individual Player Character and Best Puzzles awards at the 2002

Xyzzy Awards The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of ''XYZZYnews''. Any game released during the y ...

, and was a finalist for four other categories. Puzzles in the game require the player to make "leap of inference" between objects with similar functions. The game was generally praised for its unique use of magical powers (based on weaving links between similar objects, so that anything that happens to one happens to both) and its high-quality implementation. A mini-game follow-up, ''Damnatio Memoriae'', was released in 2006.

References

Game entry at Baf's guideGame entry at IFWiki
2000s interactive fiction 2002 video games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games set in the 18th century Video games set in France {{puzzle-videogame-stub