Разработчик: Weather Factory
Описание
На протяжении пятнадцати веков, Дом Затишья был цитаделью знаний - пока не пришел огонь. Коллекция уничтожена, и последний Библиотекарь покинул его. Лишь кто-то, обладающий вашими уникальными талантами, сможет восстановить библиотеку.
BOOK OF HOURS - это элегантная, меланхоличная небоевая RPG, действие которой происходит в оккультной библиотеке, от создателей Fallen London, Sunless Sea и дважды номинированной на премию BAFTA Cultist Simulator.
Предайтесь блаженному покою - расставляйте книги по полкам и обустраивайте свой новый дом, в то же время счищая века истории с каменных стен, окружающих вас.
Влияние Библиотекаря простирается далеко за пределы Дома Затишья. Вам решать, как именно будет написана история.
За 20–40 часов, необходимых для прохождения игры, вам предстоит:
★ ПРИОБРЕТАТЬ, РЕСТАВРИРОВАТЬ и КАТАЛОГИЗИРОВАТЬ оккультные книги, свитки и диковинки.
★ ИЗУЧАТЬ девять Мудростей и покорять девять Элементов Души.
★ НАПРАВЛЯТЬ посетителей, которые приходят за вашей помощью, выбирая их путь и историю.
★ ИССЛЕДОВАТЬ Тайные Истории и пантеон Часов, который ими управляет.
★ ВОССТАНОВИТЬ огромное разрушающееся здание, построенное на фундаменте древнего аббатства.
★ ВЫРВАТЬ свое прошлое из безвестности. Выберите одно из девяти различных Наследий, которые определяют, кем вы являетесь. Вы можете быть Магнатом, отказавшимся от богатства в поисках покоя. Или Археологом, спасающимся от проклятия, которое вы пробудили. А может быть, ваше происхождение более эзотерично, как у Семургиста или Двурожденного? Каждое прохождение игры предлагает разные возможности.
Weather Factory - это команда из двух человек с поддержкой множества талантливых фрилансеров. BOOK OF HOURS была частично профинансирована программой Европейского Союза Creative Europe Programme - MEDIA. Спасибо, Европа! Мы любим тебя. ♥
Поддерживаемые языки: english, russian, simplified chinese
Системные требования
Windows
- ОС: Windows 10 or later, 64-bit
- Процессор: 2GHz or better
- Оперативная память: 2 GB ОЗУ
- Видеокарта: 4GB VRAM, 1600x1024 minimum resolution; integrated graphics cards will only work if post-2012
- DirectX: версии 11
- Место на диске: 5 GB
- Звуковая карта: DirectX 11 compatible
Mac
- ОС: MacOS 12 or later
- Процессор: 2GHz or better
- Оперативная память: 1 GB ОЗУ
- Видеокарта: 4GB VRAM, 1600x1024 minimum resolution; integrated graphics cards will only work if post-2012
- Место на диске: 5 GB
- Звуковая карта: DirectX 11 compatible
Linux
- ОС: Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04 (these are the standard Unity Player requirements; other distros may work; we test on Mint Cinnamon)
- Процессор: 2GHz or better, x64 architecture with SSE2 instruction set support.
- Оперативная память: 1 GB ОЗУ
- Видеокарта: 4GB VRAM, 1600x1024 minimum resolution, OpenGL 3.2+, post-2012 integrated graphics
- Место на диске: 5 GB
Отзывы пользователей
This game is a deliberate time sink, masquerading as a puzzle. 'Get these resources in this combination to open this thing. Oh, and we're not going to tell you how. Congratulations, now do it again, but slightly differently. And again. And again. And again.' The 'lore' sprinkled through gives an illusion of exploration, but there's really nothing behind it. It doesn't matter. A fun metaphor for most occult studies, actually. Maybe this is just a clever piece of performance art. Still can't recommend it as a game, though.
Book of Hours is an exploration puzzle game about uncovering eldritch truth while sitting in a comfy chair by the fireplace. It is a relaxed version of Cultist Simulator, in which you don't have to be afraid of dying every 5 minutes and you actually keep the books you read. In fact, changes from CS to BoH is similar to how Sunless Sea transitioned to Sunless Sky. The game has way less RNG and grind than before, richer visually and gives more freedom to do what you want. It is still about managing timers and cooldowns, but there're a lot more sure ways to get the stuff you need. Closer to the endgame it may seem that your progression is throttled by RNG, but actually it is a mind trap created by relying on familiar methods.
Now, the large portion of actually playing Book of Hours is figuring out what you can do and how, so telling about it in the review would defeat the whole point. This is why the review below may look like baby's first SCP article.
Basic Concepts
Every item in the game has stats and qualities assigned to them, allowing them to be used in certain context. Your soul cards represent both your stats, action points and what kind of approach you take when interacting with objects.
On a basic level you interact with things through actions like "consider" and "speak". You can't speak to a book, but you can speak to someone about the book. Later you can find a variety of workstations that can be used in place of actions with greater efficiency at the cost of adding limitations. A surgeon's table isn't exactly a place to read a book, but can be used to dissect something. Musical instruments can create music, kitchen is a good place for cooking, etc.
Reading Books
You play as a newly appointed Librarian of the Hush House, an ancient repository of secret knowledge. Naturally, it is your job to know what all of the books in your possession are about. Reading books also allows you to do stuff described in them.
Each book has a stat requirement that you need to match to understand its mystery. You do so by using your soul cards that match the stat. Successfully understanding the mystery rewards you with a memory, a fleeting crafting material that expires after a day. You can read the same book again to recall that memory. You also receive a lesson, a special kind of memory that you can keep for a long time, but can't recover on a second read. Lessons unlock and upgrade skills that can be used later for a variety of things.
Some books also have additional qualities, like languages and curses. Librarian already knows languages like Latin and Greek, but some need to be learned from visitors. You don't have to remove a curse in order to read the book, but it is a good idea to do so.
Personally, i would also recommend keeping notes about the stuff you read and what you get from each book. The game allows you to copy the text in any window by simply clicking it, so you could paste it somewhere else.
Restoring the House
The Hush House was abandoned for a long time. It is your job to restore it, which will take a bit more effort than just changing a few planks and repainting the walls. The Hush House was a lot of things in the past, not just a library for occult books. So restoring it is more like restoring an old SCP site, except you don't personally fight the monsters. To deal with all of the living mists, whispering shadows, sentient rays of light and other things you need assistance from nearby town.
Like with books, each room requires you to match at least one stat needed to restore it. Whatever unfortunate soul you brought into the House has basic stats that you can enhance by talking to them. Use your soul to collaborate, complain about the weather or something you've read in the book, feed them, get them drunk, give them "instruments", and then send the poor fools to fight stains of screaming paint in the attic. After they are done, you permanently unlock the new room.
As i mentioned before, restoring rooms deeper into the House becomes more challenging and requires higher stats to do each time. The town has a few permanent residents with low stats and a few more that come and go with seasons. Getting assistants with highest stats is tied to RNG. Additionally, the best memory you can get in early and mid game is also tied to RNG and the season. This means that unlocking rooms will require you to have:
- the right RNG based season and weather;
- the right RNG based assistant;
- the right soul card available;
- the right instrument;
[*]the right drinks and food.
All just to have a chance to unlock a SINGLE room. This was greatly improved after launch and with DLC, but it is still very easy to feel throttled by RNG. This issue is also compounded by how you increase your stats.
Enriching the Soul
Learning skills from books allows you to interact with the Tree of Wisdom. Assigning a learned skill to one of its branches gives you an additional soul card, depending on the discipline you chose and the skill. With more soul cards you can do more stuff per day. Later you can also evolve cards, trading quantity of cards for quality.
Unfortunately, Tree of Wisdom is another pitfall that newer players fall into. See, evolving cards requires special workstations that only accept cards with certain stats. Which means that if you assigned a skill to a soul card that cannot be put together into a workstation, you've left yourself at a noticable disadvantage. It is not the end of the game, but it cannot be undone until a new run is started.
Crafting
Learning and upgrading skills and increasing your stats isn't just for reading. Many rooms in the House have special workstations that can be used to create stuff to help you with your duties. Each skill has a few recipes that require certain stats and materials. Knowledge of herbs allows you to make simple healing balms, ink brewing is used for mixing paints and inks. Higher recipes for metallurgy allow you to turn common metals into magic metals. Fleeting memories are transformed into stronger persistent memories, both of which can then be used for other things.
Remember how you had to wait for the right weather to unlock a new room? Now you can just "recall" a forbidden secret and share it with your assistant. A crappy +1 to a stat from a saw? How about a creepy doll that gives +6? Have you tried my homebrew yet? It is made with wet dreams i've got from a 19th century erotic poem.
Visitors and Affairs
Being a Librarian isn't just about reading books yourself. It is also about lending books to people who actually need them. Sometimes something unusual will happen in the world and people will come to you for help.
Periodically the game will draw a random Affair, an event happening in the greater world. Certain visitors associated with that Affair will come to you seeking knowledge. Giving them books with the right stats will reward you with special currency of the occult society, which you can use to receive favour from other visitors, like learning a new language. While visitors can teach you a new language, you can't actually teach them. If you don't have the right book on hand, you can offer visitors to stay, provided that you have the right bed. When the Affair is finished, it is added to the Tree of Wisdom, where you can decide the outcome by inviting the right visitors again, earning additional rewards.
And i ran into the limit. There're a lot of things i didn't mention, like endings and the DLC stuff, but what is here should be enough.
It's a quiet and contemplative sort of game, and make no mistake you will be expected to take notes, write things down, and make your own indexing scheme. If the sort of gameplay where some occult investigator shows up asking about a mysterious entity in a sewer and you then go puttering off to your bookshelves, muttering to yourself "now where did I put that copy of Exorcism for Girls" appeals to you, this will be your sort of game.
That being said, it requires time, and during that time not much happens. If you are seeking significant story or complex mechanics, that won't happen here - there's a little puzzle-crafting where you need to figure out which ingredients make fit the recipes and work stations available, and there's a few mysteries to uncover as you slowly unlock the house, but it's all pretty stately and measured and considered. This is a game of planning, organisation, and careful investigation. It can probably be shortcut and also ruined with use of an external wiki.
It has absolutely lovely music and evocative sound, and interesting and detailed 2d graphics, though you may wish to confirm you like the style.
I like it.
I love the music, the relaxing gameplay, and the sense of exploration of a parallel reality. The artwork, style, bit of intrigue, and even the challenge of figuring out the mechanics for moving forward or getting out of a malady keeps the game open for days on end!
Very similar to cultist simulator: a grand game, very experimental, but gets a bit tedious by the end and that really hurts it. Has a lot of cool secret stuff and yet I ended up feeling there should have been more. Definitely better than cultist simulator was, but there's still a lot of room for improvement in both UI and gameplay.
In its essence this is a crafting game with obscure gameplay (it's supposed to be this way) and even more obscure lore (it's supposed to be this way). Requires a lot of time, reading and excel spreadheets to play comfortably. Has the most obscure and convoluted lore I've yet seen in a videogame, even compared to author's previous works on Fallen London. If that sounds intriguing, I recommend at least trying it out.
10/10
Weather factory makes games that scratch a very particular itch, and scratches it well.
If you have an interest in medieval occultism/ alchemy/ esoteric studies, this game is the modern Magnum Opus. May the blessings of the Watchman enlighten your being, the cup of the Sister and Witch overfloweth.
Cultist simulator kinda dog water but addicting, this one like good good
I was nervous getting into this because I thought it might be really hard but the difficulty is really refreshing. I never played cultist sim but this is really good for someone coming in with no idea. I have had a lot of fun playing this game!!!
Gave it an honest go but... it's a cooldown management simulator with some lore you gotta piece together. The gameplay is primary managing the said cooldowns and a very clunky inventory (the entire map is your inventory).
Works fine on a steam deck but some text doesn't scale and playing with a touch pad is not super convenient.
Confusing but in a good way. The system is complex but can be untangled at your own pace as you test, fail, and master various skills and tools.
There's an old mod for Minecraft called Thaumcraft, which used to be one of the most popular mods of all time, and then stopped being updated to new versions of the game a few years back after the mod developer moved on to other things. Thaumcraft had INCREDIBLE ideas and was more innovative and creative than most AAA games I've played, to the point where it constantly felt like it wanted to be its own game, and was just held by the limitations of Minecraft. Book of Hours is the spiritual successor to Thaumcraft that I've dreamed of for half of a decade, and it has the incredible flair and aesthetics of Cultist Simulator, along with tons of polish and streamlining that Cultist Simulator lacked. For those who didn't play either of those games and have no clue what I'm talking about, Book of Hours is basically a game about stumbling into a house full of wizard powertools without any instruction manuals and trying to figure out how to do magic through trial and error. Every single object, even your own thoughts, can be broken down into the raw building blocks of what concepts that object represents, which you can then reconstruct into various recipes or studies. Things are explained to you occasionally, but usually the answers just lead to more confusion. 10/10 great game
Different, than a Cultist Simulator. Familiar, but different.
Unlike Cultist Simulator that was pretty intuitive this one requres you to keep an open wiki at all times in order to knew WTH you need to do in order to progress the most efficiently.
Excellent game so far - really enjoy the exploratory/ experimental structure, just what I need these days when gassed from work. Recommend reading the creator's blog, especially if you were previously put off these titles at the time by press coverage / allegations of misconduct.
There is a brooding sense of esotericism to everything you do in this game. Whether it is inviting your friends over for afternoon tea, sorting books or learning about the impending fate of the universe.
As others have said: take notes!
this is a game for people who get sexual thrill from editing spreadsheets.
half of my gameplay has been spent adding information to a spreadsheet, editing information, reorganising information, sorting information, resorting information, and then doing it better in a different spreadsheet. very fun!
the gameplay loop is either very fun and rewarding, or its purely exhausting. it entirely depends on the person.
you will need to take notes. you will need to pay attention. elaborate, lush, thought-provoking writing that rewards the player that takes their time to make connections between occultist themes and hidden instructions.
being a well-respected figure as the librarian of the hush house in the occult world of cultist simulator / book of hours is a refreshing change in pace from feeling hunted and persecuted the entire time in cultist simulator.
the expansion house of light erases the worry you will run out of lessons in books to upgrade the skills you want. dont worry. it will all be okay even if you seriously mismanage your skills and the tree of wisdoms. you can come back from almost anything.
if you have a goal of achievement hunting and getting all achievements in games, this will be a punishing experience for you. book of hours is not designed for that.
Another good one from the makers of Cultist Simulator. It builds on the esoteric Secret Histories of that title, but with a more relaxed and forgiving play style. Are you interested in delving into the secrets of an occult library that you’ve recently been charged with maintaining as Librarian? Do you want to try to organize the various books, artwork, and other objects in the building while uncovering the history of the place (while also aiding the od researcher who turns up looking for information from the library)? Are you okay with games where reading *everything*, taking notes, and putting together the story (and mechanics) yourself? If so, VBook of Hours might be for you.
Chill British library owning simulator with lore so dense I still don't understand most of it after all this time in it (and also 1000 hours in cultist simulator, it's predecessor)
Book of Hours takes a pleasant new approach while remaining true to it's core mechanics from Cultists Simulator. If you played the previous game and got overwhelmed by the constant "do or die" experience, but still liked the core mechanics, then this will be a lot more enjoyable to you.
What a great game. Everything that made Cultist Simulator good with all the annoyances gone. So many hours played, so much content still left to unlock and find. Great, relaxing game that will just time away and you'll never feel it happen.
You can't play this game casually, but it's super fun to get lost in. Take notes - TAKE. NOTES. If you haven't played Cultist Simulator the gameplay can be a bit confusing, but if you play around you'll get the hang of it.
If you like reading, and atmosphere, and discovering game mechanics and systems, this game is great. If you do not like those things, and not just from not knowing you like those things, you probably wouldn't like this game.
Much more relaxing and forgiving than cultist simulator. it even says so in the little splash screen. If I could describe it to a friend in an elevator pitch type thing, I'd say it's an almost-idle type crafting menus game, where there is nearly zero explanation of any of the mechanics, and a lot of the fun is in the experimentation of figuring the game out. All wrapped in a weirldy cozy cultist librarian theme.
Amazing game, easy recommend to anyone.
50 hours, 49 spent reading lore. Still grindy as cultist simulator, which is what ultimately turned me away when I realized I was trying to unlock rooms just for the same of filling my library with books of the same color while disregarding the lore. Something that you want to play as a slow burn, returning once in a while but never in a binge.
You start with six minutes to live. Except you don't fail if you go over so there's no actual pressure to learn anything. That's good because the game also isn't interested in teaching you how to play. If you like games where the experience is figuring out what you can do, you'll love it. This isn't fun for me and I don't have the time for it even if it was.
This game is filled with mistery and discovery and as its predecessor is incredibly suggestive.
BoH takes the card game of cultist simulator and makes it feel more of a calm puzzle and a point and click adventure, removing the possibility of death on a timer and adding stunning artwork.
Only requisite to enjoy it is if you like reading since the most enjoyable part of the game it's in the descriptions. It's also slow paced, you will need to strain your wist to get through the grindier parts of the game, but it's worth it.
This was my go-to game last winter, and I thought I was done...but then the House of Light DLC came out and - what do I know - I'm now hooked on baking magical game pie and inviting strange acquaintances to tea.
The writing in this game is rich and complex, poignant and humorous. Some fans have buried themselves deep in the lore and 'get' what's going on - I admit I prefer to let the prevailing *mood* wash over me, as I potter about my strange library by the sea. I like a little darkness shimmering between my campfires.
I started out filing books about strange histories and rites, and unlocking dusty rooms filled with abandoned eldrich horrors and creepy artwork. Now, as I mentioned, I'm collecting odd visitors and gardening in mysterious seasons under the moon to bake a rare souffle. All of this by placing cards in slots, slowly, and seeing what magic transpires.
If you are someone who loves to read, to sort, catalogue and sift, to wander and have the patience to let uncanny threads coalesce, you will enjoy this. There is no handholding whatsoever - it's all experimentation, reading, or the occasional peek at a wiki or guide if you really can't get the hang of something.
I enjoy the tone of snippets of books from bygone eras, and even the manner of speaking of the visitors - there is a sensitivity to framing the (unseen) world that gives me nostalgia for parts of the early 20th century I just touched distantly through my grandparents' generation, and the books they left behind.
Fortunately, books are the memory that does not die. Enjoy your time in Hush House.
Ah nothing better than spending a few hours, tea in hand, cataloguing the books of ages past while the storm batters the walls of the House.
Gorgeous art style and laid-back storytelling. A unique ambience totally unlike Cultist Simulator.
Tips: Remember to read everything, take notes of anything interesting written in the books and cataloguing the books by memories produced massively sped the game up for me.
Poetic, mysterious, contemplative. Also, there's no other game like this; perfect for those who seek originality and avowed authorship.
(+++) Originality
(++) Atmosphere
(++) Progress directly bound to the exploration of the core game mechanics
(++) Minimalistic representation of complex gameplay through items as simple as cards
(+) Everything I liked about the Cultist Simulator is still here, but the reversed sentiment – now the game wants me to actually succeed (and gives me all the time and tools I need) – suits this type of game much better.
(+) Although the art-direction could use a lot more consistency and stricter curation (a lot of art feels like a placeholder), it fits the game perfectly and deepens the experience.
(--) UI and UX are burdensome and the biggest put off by far (moving around the map/board; zoom mechanics; item and card placement and management;...)
(-) Been playing since day one, constantly see the developer talk a lot about some QoL improvement patches being released, but any time I boot up the game, I feel like there are barely any changes (basically the biggest UX issues get some negligible iteration here and there, but stay fundamentally dysfunctional and are never truly addressed despite what the developer wants you to believe).
(-) Some design decisions are a bit frustrating: 'soul' upgrading is very tedious; some random book covers don't follow its attribute color-scheme for no apparent reason (other than making them difficult to spot);...
(-) Half-way down the house I feel like I fell into a rut; a very repetitive gameplay loop.
The longer I play the more aggravated and impatient I feel. Still hasn't felt fun though.
This is an amazing cozy game especially if you like puzzles and figuring things out! I haven't been disappointed even when I'm hitting a wall and don't know how to proceed
Good things
-Very chill and relaxing atmosphere
-Beautiful soundtrack
-Interesting lore that will leave you theorizing for a long time if you engage with it.
Bad things
-Very slow intro that depends a lot on luck
-Can get tedious after multiple playtroughs
'Cultist Simulator' but House Flipper
Sumptuous, relaxing, and deliciously complex---this game is a joy to casually explore and also intently play with focus.
The actual game-play consists of the following: exploring the map by reading, "reading" books, reading the text excerpts from those books for pleasure and information, exploring a vast system of mystical/alchemical crafting, developing your mystical skills, charting/planning your mystical ascendance, restoring the rooms of Hush House, and organizing your library/estate to better facilitate your alchemy, skill development, and final destiny as the newest Librarian of Hush House.
My only note of caution is that the game would be quite difficult to play without some kind of note-taking. I personally made an Excel Book with about 15 pages to help me organize my library and access the exact info I want quickly and easily when trying to gather memories (but this is probably extreme). For me, the element of gathering and organizing information is part of the fun, as is deciding how to organize the books in-game. A more lackadaisical approach may suffice for those with more Fet, less Mettle, and less Ereb than myself, as I cannot help but seek to make the most of each day and each season.
If you think you might like this game, you'll probably love it.
I wholeheartedly recommend this game. It is one of the most unique, relaxing, and enjoyable games I've ever played.
Puzzles, mysteries, and lore. so much lore
meditative, puzzle-driven, obscure in its lore. If you have wild imagination - this game can give u tons of exciting stories. Gameplay revolves around discovering bits & pieces of worlds histrory until u craft your own. Also if u are a fan of Lovecraft, u are most certainly welcome
Pretty fun
Hours of Book.
For those who suffer from a lack of confusion, desire a momentary sense of purpose, hold a yearning for discovery of arcane and esoteric systems, and like busts (yes the sculpted heads, not the other kind; though that doesn't preclude enjoyment).
I like this game. If you're anything like me, you will too. 8.5/10 on the scale of subjective indulgence.
10/10. A puzzle game at it's core, but also about reading books. Lots and lots of books.
Took me about 50 hours on a blind(ish) playthrough, and it seems to have a lot of replayability! Starting my second one now.
good game. esoteric.
You know that image of Patrick with the board nailed to his head and holding a hammer?
That's how this game makes me feel, but I'm still so determined get something right.
Also, rescuing and housing animals is a wonderful feature; They are all good babies
Completely wonderful. They've somehow used the same mechanics as Cultist Simulator to create a game that FEELS extremely different to play. Where Cultist Simulator is a frantic repetition of patterns in an effort to find a new scrap before something finishes you off, Book of Hours is a steady, meticulous march toward mastery.
The progression of unlocking rooms with your increasing understanding and power feels so great. There's always new secrets lurking in the library, waiting to be unlocked, and so many puzzles that reward paying close attention to details. (Should I be worried that some of the lore is starting to make sense to me?)
I loved Cultist Simulator, but Book of Hours is going to be one of my all-time favorites.
I wrote a powershell script to convert my pasted notes to CSV files that I can play with in Excel.
I'm seriously thinking about putting them into an SQL database.
No, there is absolutely no real need for me to do these things. The lore is just so dang engrossing that I feel compelled to build my own relational database for it instead of relying on the wikis.
10/10
The best cozy and horrifying library simulator on the market.
There is nothing that even comes close to a Weather Factory game. They're always so unique, well-written, pretty, seductive, fascinating. They make you wish the world was a more mystical place.
BoH is no different. A true work of art, and as fun (if not more) as Cultist Simulator. Highly recommended!
This game scratches a particular itch, so it might not be for everyone.
If you own a copy of House of Leaves, you don't have a choice, you're buying it now.
Very mid, gameplay loop unfortunately never evolves and stays the same for 40 hours. You just kinda grinding and looking for the way to finish the game. Crafting is okay, but the fact that even the same recepies will not show on different skill is stupid. Looking for something that have more than 1 different aspect is borderline insane. The game would probably be like 30% shorter if it had multiaspect highlight. Honestly, from the game about occult books I was kinda expecting more cool interactions or managment of books and not some weird oldschool quest mechanics
I feel like my review for Book of Hours is going to be more or less the same as Cultist Simulator. I love the concept but it feels like the developers go out of their way to make everything as obtuse and mysterious as possible. Why do your skills have to be called 'Phost', 'Ereb' or 'Fet', rather than 'Charisma', 'Intelligence', etc? The descriptions are vague philosophical nonsense that leaves you with no real idea of what each skill is meant to really represent.
Why does the currency need to be in pence, shilling and crowns? All that does is make me have to constantly re-check how much money I actually have. Oh I have a Shilling, that equals 12 pence. A pound is 240 pence, not 100.
I'm picking on specific examples but literally everything in the entire game is like this. Nothing means anything to me so I can't get immersed or interested in the world. You are a librarian who reads countless books but they all just give you one sentence of mysterious gibberish about people and places you don't know. It constantly feels like I'm reading a book from a 10-part series and I've decided to start on book 7 and have no idea who the characters are or what's going on. It doesn't add meaning to the world, it just makes me disconnect from it.
Also similarly to Cultist Simulator, the gameplay is very addictive for the first 10 hours or so and then you kind of get stuck and have to repeat the same actions over and over and over and over until you get exactly what you need. E.g. to progress you need 15 'moth aspect'. With your currently available skills and items maybe you can reach 11 aspect, so you need to figure out how to get 4 more. Each day you get a weather card which might have some moth aspect, but it's random so you may need to wait days or weeks to get the one you need. You can read books you have already read to get a memory card but then you have to try to remember which book gives which memory and there's nearly 300 books... So you look it up on the wiki and hopefully you have it. Maybe you have it but it's in a language you don't understand and need to wait months for a random NPC to visit that can teach you the language. Maybe you have the book but it has it's own skill check of 12 'sky aspect' which you don't have so you need to figure that one out first. EVENTUALLY you get the right memory, wait a week to get the right weather card, and finish the check. Hopefully you don't mess anything up because weather and memory cards disappear after one day. Then you realise you've been playing for an two hours and feel exhausted just trying to complete one small goal.
The above is the simplest example I can give - I could honestly rant for ages about all the obtuse hoops you have to jump through just to get one card that helps you get another card to help you get another card to help you complete a goal. I don't believe anyone who says they completed this game without the wiki, or that they even remotely understand the plot/lore of the game without the wiki. I'm sad, because this genre is so up my alley but Weather Factory's design choices continue to baffle me.
Better more atmospheric Cultist Simulator.
Remember that feeling of being snowed in, with a warm cup of beverage, plenty to read, and nothing to do all day but think about what you were doing in the moment? Now you are doing it in an eldritch library at the end of the world. Every so often terrible creatures in human attire arrive and engage in polite conversation.
The vibes on this game are immaculate, the art style is amazing, and the game has just hooked me so deeply. The fact that there isn't a tutorial does cause some confusion at points, but actually adds to the game in that it encourages you to explore, try things out, and when something works it feels so satisfying. Absolutely recommend, especially for loves of books and libraries and mysteries.
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Weather Factory |
| Платформы | Windows, Mac, Linux |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 22.12.2024 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 92% положительных (2175) |