The Horror at Highrook

A nice little Lovecraftian homage to the Lovecraft-adjacent Cultist Simulator. The game is easier (and therefore shorter) than the latter, but I would definitely recommend checking it out first to get a feel for the mechanics. The only complaint I have is that the demo save doesn't carry over to the full game, so I had to repeat the first chapter, which took about an hour. I overall spent about 20 hours in this game, completing all of the sidequests. Not a bad way to spend a couple of days.

I can faintly recommend the game. The story is very good and the puzzles were simple to a fault. However, when you get the I THINK I SHOULD FOCUS ON SOMETHING ELSE for the umpteenth time, the shine starts to wear off. Also, this game is, at best, played to completion twice if you want to unlock all the achievements. After that, don't bother with it. The game is completely scripted and linear, with no deviation to the game itself. I'm currently speedrunning the game just to get the last two achievements, and then I'm calling it quits.

Two hours in, completed chapter 1, but I'm feeling like I'm not making many choices. The gameplay is superficially like Cultist Simulator or Book of Hours, but where those games offer plenty of choices about what to do, this is entirely scripted and linear. Effectively its cow-clicker, and the only question is how efficiently you can click the cow to zip through the titbits of plot it drops. As for the story itself, spooky Lovecraftian whatever; I've seen that before. Not recommended

A really wonderful eldritch-horror card game. Control a team of investigators, who have gone to Highrook to figure out what led to the disappearance of the family living there. Manage your resources and move your cards around the board, in a mansion board that reminded me of Betrayal at the House on the Hill. It's a mix of a logic puzzle game, card/deck builder, and mystery-horror, as you unravel what's happened and make decisions. I'd recommend going in without too many spoilers for the gameplay. It does a very nice job of giving a general overview and tutorial, without overstaying its welcome, either. It lets you get stuck into the gameplay, which felt intensive and engaging. It was like working with a puzzle box, figuring out where things needed to fit and how to get them into position for the state I needed. I enjoyed this game very much, and enjoyed the story that was told with it. I think they did a great job developing the characters, and making them each have their own rich inner-monologues and beliefs, that sometimes came into conflict. Honestly, I'm really glad I took a chance on a game that I knew would be a bit different than my norm, because I thought this was fantastic. Definitely recommend!

This is a game which commits no major sins, but just doesn't have enough going for it to warrant a recommendation. While its inspirations, such as Cultist Simulator and Stacklands, could be pretty challenging despite their apparent simplicity, this one quickly becomes tedious, and decisions are so close to autopilot that I didn't feel compelled to finish it. I'm a bit surprised to see that even some of the negative reviews praise the writing, as I found it decidedly tiresome - and as a good story is one of the pillars of this sort of game, that's a big problem. I can at least say that the sound and visual aspects of the game do their jobs pretty well. I believe one of the introductory popups pitched the experience as a "board game" - to me, that's an exciting proposition. But fellow board gamers will understand me when I say that this is more [i]Monopoly[/i] than [i]Agricola[/i].

Lost hours of gameplay: I reached Chapter 6 with watchers, but the next day I was back at Chapter 2. Sometimes you get stuck because there are almost no hints about what to do next, so you have to try things randomly or look through all your cards in case you missed anything. The game is very linear, so this is not fun, because you have to do correct action anyway to progress. Game also has a lot of repetitive tasks (I played with normal character needs). The results are always the same, and there is very little freedom or variety. (You always get Raw Meat, cook it into a Basic Meal, and repeat. You use Moonshine for sanity and Medicine made from flower to heal. And all this on repeat) There could be much more variety in game. For example, for needs: sometimes you could find a large piece of meat and cook a good meal that restores a lot of hunger. Other times you could find a strange piece of meat that restores hunger but lowers sanity. Or have medicine that greatly improves sanity but reduces health. These are just examples, but I think it could create more interesting choices. From what I've seen so far, I don't really understand the purpose of the needs system other than making the game take longer. It could be used for more interesting mechanics, like finding special items while insane, recovering less stamina because of nightmares, and so on. Some cards can be kept in copies (like Cooked Meat and Alcohol), while others cannot. It would be nice to have some indication of this in the game, maybe directly on the card. The card management could also be improved. Right now, it's basically one big pile that you have to scroll through if you don't leave a card on the table. A very nice addition would be a loot pool on action card. At first, everything could be shown as question marks, and each item would be revealed the first time you find it. This would help with resource management ( everything is always the same, you end up memorizing it anyway or using a guide). It could also serve as a hint when you're stuck: seeing that there are still undiscovered items would tell you that there is something else you can do there, instead of wasting time assigning characters to actions that don't lead anywhere. Characters are also not equally useful. Doctor and Scholar sometimes had nothing to do, while other two were always busy. Cat is very annoying. Overall, despite the issues mentioned above, I think the game is good. If you lower the character needs (or keep them normal if you enjoy that kind of gameplay), there is a lot to enjoy. Story is good and very engaging. I even felt sad about child and the situation they all ended up in. Characters are well-written too. You can really feel the tension between them and understand their motivations. They are also diverse and interesting. The gameplay with the rooms is also interesting and enjoyable. However, I don't want to replay the hours I lost right now. Maybe I'll try again later with lower character needs.

It plays more like a Visual Novel than Cultist Simulator did, but I think that's a fine change to make for a more narratively focused game like this. This is a great framework for more games of this kind to be built off of. I'm excited to see what the next game in this series looks like.

A good game. However, characters are struggling with vocalizing some very modern takes (and mind you, I am well aware of women's suffrage and more advanced petitions of real history, but you already have women in power in the game world from the start, so the whole situation with a genius wife looks more like a specific domestic issue; a lone genius trope is too overused) and kinda cliche. Dialogs are bad, story is nothing to take home. But visuals, character design, effects and art are gorgeous. Eldritch forces are not very eldritch. It was hard to justify risking lifes of 3 renowned explorer (who cares about some scumbug Hawk) to save a terminally ill child. Such humanistic ideas do not pair well with the whole world around. Gameplay is a toned down in the terms of grind (thanks gods!!!) Cultist simulator. P.S. Leave the boy out there, he's sick and useless, save adults.