Bookbinding – Dark Cozy Sim

Really love visual and audio part of the game! The best part is designing books, which is reallyyyy meditative

I heard about this a few days ago and was eager to play. It's good that you can be male, female, or non-binary (they/them), and your gender doesn't impact your love interest options. I really like the gameplay and the freedom with bookbinding, as well as what all you can do. The game does a great job of explaining the dialogue choices (if that makes sense) without giving too much away, unless it's to warn you that it'll end a scene or lead to something like intimacy you may want to avoid. I like the characters, and the mystery is really interesting, which brings me to a, I suppose snag? that I hit. I don't know if I just screwed up somewhere or if the game truly just like, ends suddenly? I feel like I left a thousand plot threads hanging- like I read the first 5 chapters of a 17 chapter book. So I either made a massive mistake somewhere for it to end as abruptly as it did or like, there's going to be a part 2. It almost feels like a demo with how quickly things happen and how the game ends with "Thank you for playing!" at the end of 2 weeks. I wish there was more. [spoiler]I want to know more about the Player's old Master, I want to know how we discovered we could make the Dark Cards. I want to know more about WHY the Cards were commissioned and why we made 11 decks, who has them, why only the Player can make them, why our magic is "special", more about the Goddess, more about the world, our life, about Nathaniel and why his relationship with women keeps getting brought up (is he a sex worker?); I want to know more about Theo and his dad- they made it seem important. More about Benedict, about Agate's family, about Lady Thereza and the fact her son, Henry, died but she brings us his books to repair. I want to know more about the war, the last Lord of our hometown. About the capital.[/spoiler] There's so much set up, but very little payoff. It truly feels like this is the first part of a much bigger game. If there is more, I look forward to it. I also wish there was more adjustments to the opacity of the Patterns- they really look rough on the more textured cover styles. I wish they looked more like embossing or something. Some of the 3D items don't feel 3D, and it feels like there's a few things missing in the decor. Oh and the mailbox keeps kinda, idk, lighting up? I keep thinking there's something in it but the lighting on it just shifts or something. I give it a solid 6/10? I originally said 7 but the more I think about how it feels really incomplete, the more I think I want to lower the score a smidge.

In the current state, I can't recommend this and that's a bummer :( I played the demo, mistakenly played the demo again instead of the main game, then started my main game playthrough and hit one frustrating bug (the client wants their name on the book, the text tool won't resize and the requirement is never checked off, supposedly this was fixed in a recent update but it still won't work on mine), and then I hit the Day 12 black screen bug that stopped my playthrough. I uninstalled the game, but reinstalling deleted my save file. So, today, I see on the discussion forums that both of these issues have been fixed, yay! Unfortunately, after playing through the first six days for the fourth time, the text box won't resize and the text doesn't register on the client checklist. Now, I enjoy the story and how much of a mess I can make my MC, and the design aspect was fun! But this is just too frustrating, I have no idea where my save file went and if the same thing will happen if I uninstall for a bit until the bugs are worked out. Once the game is playable, I will come back and revise my review but for now, the sheer amount of frustration I've had is making me actively not want to play this -- and I think I'll just move on and check back in a few months. I see a lot of potential here but just can't keep restarting what is basically a visual novel with light gameplay and doing the same six days over and over, hoping the game crashing problems won't be there and necessitate another restart. For the record, though, if this game performs as it should? Or, let me say, WHEN it performs as it should because I believe there is enough love and care here for the devs to get it up and running properly, I will for sure come back and review it positively. TLDR; -- game crashes and bugs have caused me to play the first six days four times and I just can't do it again for a bit! But when I can play through the whole thing, it'll be awesome!

Have you ever considered how surreal it is to read a book? You spend hours staring at symbols imprinted on wood, and hallucinate…

The deeper elements of this story are wonderfully done. I really appreciated the bookbinding theme and how meaningful character details naturally emerged through simple small talk. While the occasional swearing dampened the cozy atmosphere and broke my immersion a bit, it remains a thoughtful and charming read overall

The designs for the books covers weren't to my taste and the story was not really detailed enough to keep my interest. I gave up on the game when it kept freezing and refusing to let me check the message log. It just ended up fully crashing. Shame cause I was actually really looking forward to the game.

The plot is quite engaging, too. In my opinion, blending an interactive narrative with another gameplay element is always a great concept