Quick Review: Dépanneur Nocturne

Dépanneur [day-pan-urr]: Noun. Québécois slang term referring to a convenience store.

Dépanneur Nocturne is a game by KO_OP released on May 26th, 2020. The game is also available on itch.io. In it, you play someone in a hurry to find a late-night birthday gift for their girlfriend, and who enters the titular store in the hopes of finding something, anything. Not like there’s much else open this close to midnight. Besides, it’s pouring and, because it’s Montreal, you can’t walk two steps without ending up in roadwork. Hey, that’s realistic so far!

"Bun-swar"? What's that? Some arcane language?

This environmental narrative game/walking sim leads you to this place, which is no ordinary convenience store. The salamander woman behind the counter speaks to you in the desired language, English or French (with our regional twist). There’s a strange air of mysticism to the place, implied in the posters and made more evident when chatting up the shopkeeper.

Get a coffee, pet the cat, gather quarters for the toy machine. Grab any item that looks interesting. Eugénie, the salamander, will eventually realize your situation and offer her help in a more peculiar fashion. Despite the bizarre implications from posters and the occasional creepy discovery as you dig through the store’s secrets, the game never takes a turn into horror. It remains a wholesome, short story that does end with you finding a gift.

I've worked at a gas station/convenience store. The coffee
usually ain't free. But hey, I'll take it.

Soft drinks? I never heard of Porp, it better be good.
I had to go five floors underground to find this machine!

When I say short, I mean it; unless you dig for secrets and achievements, and even if you do, you will likely finish this game in under an hour. Barring a small handful of puzzle-based ones, achievements are very easy to get, sometimes without even trying. While doing my second playthrough, I found more secrets and thought up some additional achievements that could have been fun (as an example: Putting as many items as possible in the shopping bag, as there’s a LOT to pick up). Bring items not intended for sale to Eugénie, and she’ll still comment on them.

You can’t leave without at least something to bring back to your significant other, though there are better endings to be found by accepting Eugénie’s help. You get extra comments for everything you bring to your love, including the big gift. There’s plenty of developer’s foresight here, a nice depth for a game that’s otherwise simple.

Well that explains the mysticism.

Being an environmental narrative, gameplay needs little mention. The music provides a nice ambiance. And like I said, there's lots of secrets to look for. The game being available in two languages is great (and you know how much I appreciate any Quebec representation.) And if you liked this one, its developer, KO_OP, released last year a much larger game called Goodbye Volcano High; although I haven’t played it, I felt it was worth mentioning, seeing as we’re in Pride Month and that title has LGBTQ and non-binary representation and themes.

Dépanneur Nocturne is available on Steam for 4.99$ USD... Or 6.49$ CAD.

...By the way, I offhandedly mentioned itch.io early in this article. Turns out that I have a ton of stuff on the itch.io platform as well, due to buying two huge bundles that gave to major causes in the past 4 years. Would anyone be interested in hearing me talk about some of the games I’ve got over there? Many of those are shorter experiences like today’s entry. If you’d like articles about games and other stuff on itch.io, let me know with a comment!