BOOK OF HOURS

It would have been a better book than a game. It's too easy to get screwed by your start with books that you can't read or rooms you can't unlock because you can't reliably activate villagers or assistants because the books the game gave you don't unlock the soul elements that you need to progress. If it sounds confusing, GOOD because the game wants you to feel that way. Some starts are gimped and awful (Executioner) and some are easier, but no matter what start you choose you will always hit a brick wall of tedium somewhere at the 5-10 hour mark where the two lines of text you get isn't much of a reward compared to the hoops you had to jump through to get to it.

Поначалу очень непонятно и запутанно - начиная от отсутствия обучения и продолжая десятками непонятных окон и интерактивных предметов. И поначалу было желание вернуть игру, пока не осенила сама суть геймплея, и вот тогда затянула игра конкретно. Читать придётся ооооочень много - это обязательный элемент геймплея, и без настроения и желания читать, чтобы понять, лучше не соваться. Крепкая десятка - очень необычная игра.

囤囤鼠玩家表示很好玩，相对密教模拟器来说非常的惬意。 比起密教容错率很高。瞎玩也没事，但是光凭自己玩，很难找到闰识的隐藏书籍，最好还是搭配司辰之书wiki食用-^-

設計された理不尽さに耐え、目標に向けて試行錯誤できる人はこのゲームを楽しむ適性があると思います。私はドハマりしました。 何の説明もなくゲームが始まるので最初は己の無力さや世界の理不尽さに苛立ちますが、手探りで試行錯誤してこのゲームの世界について少しずつ理解を深めていくにつれ、出来ることが次第に増えていく。そのループが段々円滑に回るようになっていき、永遠に新しい発見が続く快感が超楽しいです。色んな装丁の本を集めて眺めるのも好きです。 どちらかというとボードゲームっぽかった前作のcultist simulatorと比べて視覚的な要素が増え難解さが減り、シミュレーションゲームっぽくなったと思います。可愛い動物と暮らしたり、採集や料理っぽいことができたり、cultist simulatorより穏やかで人間らしい生活を送れます。生活費が不要だったり、何の理由もない病や、訪問者から脅されるような要素が消えたのも個人的には快適です。またcultist simulatorを遊んでる人なら「あっ！」と思う要素もあります。 やり込もうと思ったらキリのないゲームです。是非多くの人に楽しんでほしい。

The Book of Hours does some fun thing with progression -- the more you know, the further you are in the game. Most of its elements are right under your nose from the beginning, but to actually use it, or even notice it, you have to go through a process of research and discovery. Very tiny details hint you in the right direction, but the scrutiny and the fun of making connections and gaining insights are all yours. The game reminds me of a mystery box. You fiddle with it, experiment with it, try stuff, mine for knowledge and keys, and it rewards you with a new puzzle and brings the very special type of joy -- joy of discovery. If you are generally a curious person -- this game might scratch the right itch. Cultist Simulator could've done the same job, but time pressure and the game's unforgiving nature killed the vibe for me, when the Book of Hours eliminates that not-fun part, so you can focus on working out its mechanics and gathering the lore without gambling part and risk of flushing your progress down the sink because of unlucky RNG(even though they share the meta-progression mechanic). Peculiar thing -- the game made me make a spreadsheet, and I actually enjoyed it. Gathering key information and categorising it in my own manner helped me to immerse in librarian skin very well. Additional flavour for immersion comes with atmosphere of secret societies, forbidden knowledge, reticency and mystery(and speaking of that -- Alexis Kennedy knows the ball!). Art, music and especially writing -- everything works great. The story revolves around a library(to be recovered) on the Cornish oceanside, full of occult mysterious knowledge from the dust of ages and insights of passionate minds, and you are here to shed some light on it and eventually -- ascend with one of the arcane arts(or something else?). I didn't finish the game yet, but from what I've learned so far, replayability is very decent -- you cannot gather everything in one playthrough, but all the knowledge you dug up persists(in my case in the form of a spreadsheet), so you may focus on exploring the new stuff. Likely I'll be back to revise this after 100 hours, but my love for the game won't ever perish.

Really addictive once you figure out how to play; all the planning and resource management scratches my brain in the best way. The game is great with constantly giving you goals that feel challenging yet manageable, pushing you to keep working to make progress in it. I also like that it is generally a forgiving game and you don't need to min-max your resources in every game day.

A slow paced game where you act as a librarian of the occult, where you can decide how much you risk in order to get something in return. Risk nothing, and spend your days peacefully surrounded by books. Risk your body and mind, and unleash eldritch abominations in the world, or ascend to the light.