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Author Topic: Book of Hours. Be an Occult Librarian, hoard forbidden knowledge, try not to die  (Read 4072 times)

nenjin

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Now if there was just one to cycle through the upgrade stations.
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Empty

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Latest update seems to have added a button for selecting completed tasks. Very handy.

A button besides backspace for it then? Let me check.

Edit:
Oh nice!
There's not an clickable indicator in the top left for it.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2023, 05:53:22 am by Empty »
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nenjin

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I've essentially finished the game.

Sort of. But not really.

Overall, I have enjoyed Book of Hours. It easily became an 80 to 100 hour game, just taking my time, trying things out, overthinking things, reading. The writing is as good as ever, the world of Cultist Simulator gets more brush strokes added to it, the music is good, the graphics are quaint and charming. All in all probably their best game yet.

I have some some gripes though.

1. Itemization feels under baked. I haven't yet gone to a wiki and spoiled myself, but I really feel like for all the "things" BoH has in it, there's passingly little you can do with it. There are dozens and dozens of low level items that clutter up Hush House, meant to be used, but their utility is limited. And it's like they ran out of time or interest to make more interactions and recipes, because there's hints and implications all over the place.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It honestly feels like Cultist Simulator had more things at more levels you could actually make use of.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Which leads me to my second gripe.

2. Trying things out quickly becomes tiresome when you get the same results out of 90% of stuff. There's so many different kinds of work benches and potential combinations to try, but so often you are not rewarded for the effort. This was sort of true in Cultist Simulator too but at least there's things you could do with the stuff you made.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's like the game has the appearance of more variety than CS while coming down to pretty much the same thing.

3. There is a lot of filler when it comes to Hush House, and the investment --> reward structure is off. Some people might say "well the narrative is the true reward" but there is a mechanical side to the game that BoH is clearly about, but does really unevenly.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The narrative flourish of the latter rooms is good but as a gamer I want an actual reward that feels tangible to go along with it. It's like everything cool is loaded at the midline of the House because, I suspect, that's where they thought most people would stop playing. Because.....

4. Game progression is wonky when it comes to your "character" too. It is inherently random based on what books you get what you'll be strong at initially. But even then there are these weird design choices that stymie your progress. It's hard to talk about this one in depth without going into spoilers.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

5. It doesn't finish strong. Cultist Simulator didn't either if I'm honest. But Book of Hours I think knew that many people didn't have the patience to finish Cultist Simulator so they made a lot of offramps to "finish early." The note at the game launch is a direct message to hardcore fans that they're in for a grind if they want the "True" ending. But it's not punishing or challenging. It's random and tedious. And again, frustrating, because of design decisions that were made.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

To be honest I was done with Book of Hours 30 hours ago already. But I really wanted to push for the big finish. Total completion of the House and penning the specific Determination I was targeting. But BoH kind of let me down on both of those fronts. The House exploration wasn't paid off as much as I'd like, and the entire process of discovery, progression and ending completion is riddled with tedious trial and error "with exceptions" obfuscation and obligatory grinding with RNG, semi-broken systems and self-inflicted wounds due to knowledge not present or not given.

I feel like they took the "you're gonna fail at Cultist Simulator at least once" mentality and changed it to "your first run of Book of Hours isn't going to end the way you wanted it to" because you're making decisions about things you don't yet understand. It's flexible enough and gives you enough off ramps to finish some kind of way, so in a sense these are minor to average gripes. But I started to get the feeling in the latter half of the game that my time wasn't being respected. The best part of the game is front loaded but all the possibilities it promises kind of fail to meaningfully materialize by the game's end. I felt that way about Cultist Simulator too....but to a lesser extent than I do in Book of Hours. Since it's a bigger game with more "stuff" it has more room to not live up to its potential.

If I had to pick one thing out of this list that got me the most, it's the crafting. There's just so much it seems like you should be able to do, and discover, but either it's not there, which makes your time experimenting feel like it's wasted, or it's so ultra specific and secret and you're like "how many hours do you expect me to swap cards around in slots to do something cool." Like I just found out reading the Steam forums that:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I literally started using Steam's in-game notes feature because I was having that hard of a time keeping track of things. Half of my time in this game was spent navel gazing wondering "did I try this thing here at this level already? Did I go through every ingredient in that slot to see if something special or unusual happened? WTF did I make this memory for 20 minutes ago when I was thinking about something completely different." The dialogs in the crafting boxes usually tell you what your options are but some you don't know until you get 90% or 100% of the way toward a successful combination.

After this many hours with the game, I'm looking forward to play something else and I dunno, shooting something with a gun.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2023, 07:01:42 pm by nenjin »
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Il Palazzo

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See, I ended the first run early and am doing the second one more methodically, and also more leisurely. Without the OCD focus on completionism. Just enjoying the house, the feel of being an occult librarian.
Now I almost never lock a skill into the tree before I've found the required temple to upgrade the soul fragment it provides. With crafting, I might have tried randomly plugging cards in once or twice, but now I'm pretty much only ever doing anything if I find it mentioned in a book somewhere. BoH is an excellent experience played this way, but I do agree it doesn't make for much of a game.
The prospect of unlocking another room, maybe reading a new book, is what keeps me coming back for a session every now and then. But yeah, once those dry up, there won't be much of a reason to continue.
But this is still excellent - dozens of hours of quality entertainment that stays with you. It very much feels like spending time with a good book. It doesn't have to be a gamey game on top of that.

Also, the game has an autosave feature, man. If you fuck up just reload.


BTW, have you seen the screenshots on for the game on the GoG store page? Looks like they included a bunch from early versions that then got reworked or ditched entirely. I'm pretty sure a few of those screens can't possibly be in the game.
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nenjin

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I agree it's an experience that stays with you. I just wish I could say Alexis knocked it out of the park....but some of the same problems his games always have keep recurring. It's like his framework is solid but straightforward, so he has to put layers on top of it to keep up the discovery value. I just don't think he tries hard enough to create meaningful mechanical content. He's always felt a little lazy with that, going all the way back to Sunless Sea.
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Il Palazzo

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  • And lo, the Dude did abide. And it was good.
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Yeah, there is something to it. His games do tend to have the late game the weakest. But I wouldn't be so quick to chalk it down to laziness - it might just be inescapable, given the nature of his writing. He's always selling you this promise of an endlessly mysterious world, but it's just smoke and mirrors. You're bound to find the limits of the content included with the product and it will necessarily grate against the promise.
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lemon10

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I literally started using Steam's in-game notes feature because I was having that hard of a time keeping track of things. Half of my time in this game was spent navel gazing wondering "did I try this thing here at this level already? Did I go through every ingredient in that slot to see if something special or unusual happened? WTF did I make this memory for 20 minutes ago when I was thinking about something completely different." The dialogs in the crafting boxes usually tell you what your options are but some you don't know until you get 90% or 100% of the way toward a successful combination.

After this many hours with the game, I'm looking forward to play something else and I dunno, shooting something with a gun.
I have a pretty extensive google sheets document on the game, its much less confusing when you can just look at all the recipes or tell how many aspects you can generate in *x* circumstance.
External note taking is definitely very helpful.

Something to look forwards to: They are adding a recipe system to the game which will masively reduce guesswork for if you have tried something or not. I'm probably going to wait till its added to finish the game.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2023, 11:44:10 pm by lemon10 »
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And with a mighty leap, the evil Conservative flies through the window, escaping our heroes once again!
Because the solution to not being able to control your dakka is MOAR DAKKA.

That's it. We've finally crossed over and become the nation of Da Orky Boyz.

E. Albright

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I agree it's an experience that stays with you. I just wish I could say Alexis knocked it out of the park....but some of the same problems his games always have keep recurring. It's like his framework is solid but straightforward, so he has to put layers on top of it to keep up the discovery value. I just don't think he tries hard enough to create meaningful mechanical content. He's always felt a little lazy with that, going all the way back to Sunless Sea.

Oh, it goes back before that. Fallen London had that problem too. Fallen London was pretty close to being that problem.
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nenjin

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I've never been too clear on how much of Fallen London was him so I chose not to go back that far. But yeah. I've actually been tempted a couple times to start a new account....
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Malus

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I agree with pretty much all of your complaints, especially re: the later parts of the house and their contents. It is incredibly underwhelming to have the stars align, hire the right helper, juice them with the right memories/tools, unlock a new room, and it's just... a place to dispose of items (completely redundant with the Beach) and, like, two tea bags or whatever. I unlocked the whole house and after a certain point the room descriptions were more interesting than anything I was getting from the rooms themselves.

Re: the spoiler. Not sure if you're interested in a mechanical spoiler or not to help you out.
Spoiler: On Numens (click to show/hide)
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nenjin

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Oh, thanks man. I knew you could:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Much obliged!

As an aside, while I get why you'd need to re-read books, because who can honestly remember all the details of a 200 page book from memory. But as a QoL thing, I think you should just be able to consider a mastered book and re-read the lore. Would certainly make scholarship easier.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2023, 07:03:50 pm by nenjin »
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Il Palazzo

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  • And lo, the Dude did abide. And it was good.
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I don't know. I like the idea of taking notes from the books I'm reading. The game makes it easy for you with that automatic copying to clipboard. I can pretend it's all going into my journal.
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