Bookbinding – Dark Cozy Sim

dark cozy is a perfect description what this game is. it has a great, rich detective story, but what we actually do is peacefully decorate little books. honestly so i bought it mainly for the story, because i already liked it in the demo, but fans of meditative gameplay should enjoy it too shortly i recommend it! the mystery is interesting, the characters are great, and you can romance them. lol, what else do you even need from a choice based story???

I haven't gone through all the different paths but I agree with everyone's sentiment on: The game ends abruptly. No closure, no answers, no climax. It just ends. The bookbinding mechanic is very fun although I found myself getting a little frustrated with the occasional conflicting art styles. There were a few times where the game acted like I had performed a certain dialogue choice when I hadn't, and there was even a character who referred to me with the wrong pronouns. It caught me off guard and made me worry I hadn't actually chosen the right ones. The writing is mostly good but towards the end some of the dialogue felt poorly written, or maybe I was getting frustrated with the story and so it started to feel off to me. I may do another playthrough where take up the old Crone on her offer to see if that provides a more satisfying story, but for now I'm closing the book on this one.

Played through day 8 twice, I made a new game and didn't realize it would get rid of my other save so keep that in mind. Nonetheless I think I prefer the second save than the first anyway (Big Nate fan! Don't use the dark card if you want to get closer to him ) I played the first couple of play tests and was really excited to get my hands on the full game when it came out, needless to say I am very happy with my purchase! The designing aspect is good but there's still a few bugs with book corners not showing up ( only showing the 4 from the demo and not all of the options ) But the game still runs super smooth and I haven't gotten any lag. I have been loving the story so far and I'm glad depending on which gender you pick it actually has impact on the story and what characters will say to you for certain romancing options. The game is currently still on sale as of July 24th, but honestly if I had to I'd buy it for full price you can tell there was a lot of love put into this game with the hand drawn assets and lore heavy characters. Very good game, highly recommend it!

Here's the deal: the bookbinding mechanic is really fun and I like that there's a lot of dialogue options. This is a new game so there's gonna be a few bugs when it comes to the writing, which I did encounter with the they/them pronouns a few times. If this was a $5-$10 game, this really wouldn't be an issue. I got a fun little experience in a quick 3 hours and I can replay it for a few different endings. This game was $13, bought outright, with an abrupt ending, strange dialogue and behavior from both characters and the MC, and a lot of aspects to the world that were completely unexplained. I felt like I got thrown into Generic Fantasy World with Unexplained Fantasy War to add sympathy to Unsympathetic Characters #1, #2, and #3. DO NOT spend $13 on this game. I'm glad that I could support an indie developer and props to them for making a game, but it's just not worth it.

I reeeeeally wanted to like this game, and appreciate a lot of aspects of this game, like a cool art style and good music, but unfortunately it just isn't for me. I thought this would be a fun book binding sim with some plot elements sprinkled in, but it is very much a visual novel with some decorating mechanics. My main critiques are: It feels like choices don't matter, Agate seems incredibly out of place (everyone dresses like a peasant but she is dressed like a modern teen?), and the tarot card is a very sparse mechanic. The game is also FAST, it took me 4 hours to complete and the day keeps moving so much that you don't get to explore all of the plot points, which I totally understand but it just makes the story line feel very preset. I suppose I could replay, but I'm not sure it would be worthwhile.

TLDR: This is a good game and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but it is clearly in an incomplete/early access state and that needs to be disclosed. This is a tough one. I had high hopes for this game in the demo, and I'm marking the full release as reccommended because I do think it delivered on most of the elements I was hoping for, but I would be more confident in leaving a positive review if it were just marked as early access- because that's the state the game appears to be in at this time. The actual bookbinding aspect is a lot of fun- plenty of different customization options and ways to be creative with your decorations, and the UI is very intuitive. The performance issues that I encountered on my first playthrough were fixed in the most recent update, and it now appears to be running smoothly. The dialogue can get a little Tumblr prose-y, but overall the story is well-written and engaging. Where I hesitate to leave a fully positive review is in its state of completion. Spelling, grammar, and syntax errors from the demo persisted into the full game. There are moments where characters respond to you as if you made a different choice from the one you picked. The epilogue update is a step in the right direction, but I agree with other reviewers in that it feels like a bit of an afterthought. It would be so easy for me to confidently reccomend this game if it had an early access disclosure, because I really do think it's excellent- but it isn't finished, and potential new players deserve the transparency of that disclosure.

I absolutely loved the story and the character interactions! While special projects (like the Lord's elaborate request) were a blast, the general bookbinding mechanics lacked a real incentive to go above and beyond standard customer orders. Adding a bonus reward for extra effort would make the crafting side just as engaging as the fantastic narrative

Here’s the thing. I don’t mind strapping a random minigame onto a visual novel and calling it a new experience if the story is compelling. This story had so much going for it and then it stopped so abruptly that I didn’t realize the epilogue was an epilogue until it was about halfway over. For all the to-do about f/f couples being frowned upon Lord Pompous McWhatshisface seemed fine with Agate hanging around us. Oh and Agate’s parents are suddenly cool with us too? With the obvious classism issues? And in this economy? I really hope they continue to refine the story. Closing up just a few of the gaping plot holes would make it worth revisiting.

The plot of this game had promise and I thought was pretty interesting at first. I thought the bookbinding mechanic was fun and enjoyed the amount of dialogue options. However this game feels very unfinished. Despite the dialogue options it doesnt really make much of a difference what you say. I know there are expected to bugs in a new game but I still can only do one tarot reading where it explains the meaning. I have also noticed there are spelling errors and other similar errors that I have reported and they have not been fixed. I found every ending to be extremely disappointing. They added "epilogues" but i was very disappointed by those as well, as the way they were written seemed very thrown together like "here, damn". This game is also way too short for the amount it costs. I wanted to love this but unfortunately it comes off as very unfinished. I would have waited longer for a better game with better conclusions.