BOOK OF HOURS

Gather Many Loyal Followers, Exalt with Haste to Know the Moon Rose to Scale the Night Sky

If you like reading, the occult, HP Lovecraft, puzzles, exploration, home decorating, and crafting, I cannot recommend this game enough. There is always something new to discover around every corner, and the game will really draw you in if you like mystery. Book of Hours practically oozes atmosphere in a way I've rarely seen other games accomplish. You live the day to day life of an occult Librarian, although your library starts destroyed and you have to renovate it room by room, part of the fun is seeing what awaits in every new room you unlock. The books themselves are full of esoteric knowledge, both as a game mechanic and as text you can read in the dialogue box. You can click on pretty much every object, and they all have a description and even further information you can read if you put it in your examine slot. And the way that they're written adds so much to the creepy and enigmatic atmosphere. The one thing I would caution people on is the steep learning curve. Starting out you will struggle to figure out what stuff means and how to interact with the world. But that is part of the experience, it adds to the mystery and figuring out how to be an effective librarian is really what the game is about. If you really struggle, like you can't even get into the library despite trying everything, don't feel bad about watching or reading an beginner's guide. I still barely know how crafting works after dozens of hours, but it's totally worth it once you get the hang of things. Overall I would give it a 9.5/10, I really want to give it a perfect score but I have to take off half a point for the poor explanation of the game mechanics. Could use a little bit of a better tutorial, but that's easily solved by internet resources. Get into the library and you will get hooked on unlocking rooms just to see what weird stuff awaits.