BOOK OF HOURS Reviews

I've played through Book of Hours twice and just recently finished a play-through of Cultist Simulator. Of the two, I definitely prefer Book of Hours. Both are very text-based games for people who like piecing together a story from bits and pieces. I find them both very imaginative, but Book of Hours has two major advantages over Cultist Simulator: firstly, the visuals. There really was no visual aspect to Cultist Simulator at all beyond some brief background art that flashed up with certain events, and for some people (myself included), it's not as easy to stay engaged with a story that is broken up over a thousand little events if there's not much to look at in the time between the story bits. Here, you have this stylistic scene of Hush House and Brancrug Village that changes with the weather and the seasons. It's still primarily a text-based game, but this is a big improvement over looking at a field of the same set of cards for the entirety of the game. Not to mention it helps establish a sense of the style. The second advantage is the fact that this game is a little more relaxed. In Cultist Simulator, you constantly had to manage conditions (despair, obsession, and affliction) while trying to progress through the story. Given that the games are a little esoteric from the start, that pretty much results in everyone losing the first time they play through because it takes some time to figure out how to handle these, which can be a bit of a turn off. Not to mention when you want to focus on the story, managing these little annoyances just takes time away from that. That's gone in Book of Hours. The challenge is now figuring out the right way to unlock the rooms of the house and find the skills and ingredients you need to progress rather than racing to finish the story before some inevitable string of bad luck ends your run. I do miss some of the different settings from Cultist Simulator, though. The Hush House is interesting, but the expeditions and the dreams in the Mansus gave a little variety of place that Book of Hours could have used (especially if paired with the new visual art of the game). Hopefully, 'Traveling at Night' will keep the best of both.

Book of Hours is one of my Go-To cosy games. It has a phenomenal atmosphere, and I’ve found it a comforting tradition to boot it up with a cup of tea and go through the motions of restoring the old library. It can admittedly be very difficult to play, in that the game does not explain itself what-so-ever. There is little in the way of instruction, but I believe that to be the point. It is a game at its core about discovering secrets, and as such the player must figure out what it is they are doing, and how to do it. The downside of this is that you will very likely be googling how to do various things in the game in order to progress, the upside is that when you do discover a secret on your own, the feeling of discovery, of delving into old texts to uncover some hidden secret is unparalleled. Its mechanics are satisfying, and its gameplay loop is much more forgiving than its predecessor “Cultist Simulator” The process of unlocking books to upgrade skills, to upgrade your Soul, to unlock more books is smooth and entertaining. It does get to a certain point where it takes quite a bit of time management and skill to unlock certain things, however I found that to be a refreshing uptick in the game's difficulty level as you enter its final stages. Book of Hours in addition to impeccable atmosphere and a satisfying game-play loop, has a rather intriguing narrative element. I cannot say I understand the story of this universe at all. It is esoteric, strange, and eldritch in a way I find delightful. It truly gives you the impression that you are dealing with forces completely outside comprehension and reason. I personally began taking notes on the story, trying to unravel it. Through this I managed to understand small pieces of this game's lore, but just enough was left a mystery that I often find myself wandering back to the game in order to tease out other small pieces of information to appease my curiosity. Overall Book of Hours is a fantastic game, and if you are interested in an atmospheric, lore-rich, puzzle game, with a hint of eldritch horror I cannot recommend this game enough.

In my first attempt at the game I became obsessed with the books which is accurate to real life.

Think Cult Simulator, but instead of building a cult, you're rebuilding a massive occult library. Less urgency of time and even more stuff to unravel. Just be prepared to read a lot and maybe have a wiki or beginners guide at hand.

Very different from CS, but a very satisfying deeper dive into the lore if you have the patience. I'm an unashamed wiki user and still get heaps of enjoyment from figuring out how to actually *do* the things I'm told to do. I also simply love this universe.

I've always been a fan of Weather Factory's games, but this one is the best so far. While it still has the hypnotic introduction to an esoteric world that Cultist Simulator does, it's far less frantic and far more cozy, which makes it a 10/10 for me.

Wonderful and interesting game with great flavour and a deeply lore-filled universe. Rather slow and no real risk for the player (Can be positive or negative depending on what you look for). great for a slow evening or night. I really like it.

TLDR: If you are into narratives, it's worth it. BUT, you will need to figure out how to play it correctly. This game will become fun by ignoring most of the drilling if you are super familiar with the game contents. After that you can really enjoy the narrative and art. DLC makes this easier, honestly. For your sanity: you need a spreadsheet to take notes or copy data from game wiki when playing. Write down useful skills and crafting chains. Write down a version of wisdom tree and follow it in all the walkthroughs. I also recommend using the Memory Marker mod from Nexus.

It's better than Cultist Simulator, but also suffers from some of the same flaws as Cultist Simulator. If you disliked Cultist Simulator I don't expect you'd like Book of Hours. Overall the game is similar - uncover occult mysteries, via game mechanics that are initially confusing but which you gradually work out. The player's experience with the mechanics of the game mirrors the protagonist's progress through the game. What makes the game better than cultist simulator is the broadening of mechanics. As well as researching mysterious secrets, you're exploring rooms of a mansion, and doing some gathering/crafting. Apparently Book of Hours is more forgiving than Cultist Simulator. It is difficult to find the items you need. The main tool seems to be visually scanning the map for items that highlight when you mouse over a related icon. However you typically want to find things that match two icons, not just one. The answer seems to be a lot of physically rearranging items into different rooms, in order to group things to make searching easier. However the rooms in the house don't hold many items. This is all rather awkward. Overall, expect heavy note-taking, and lots of waiting for shortish timers to finish.

A pretty chill game about organizing books and memories to get one of MANY endings. There is almost always something to do (except if you're waiting for Numa) like reading books and crafting persistent memories. It's also visually appealing with the same artstyle as Cultist Simulator, though with a whole map this time. I do think the gameplay is repetitive after a while and crafting is difficult without a guide pre Numen, so it's not a game for everyone. There is a lot of lore to uncover, however and once you get in the flow it's actually pretty fun.