BOOK OF HOURS

一杯茶一包烟，一局游戏……哦，这个一天打不完一局，杀时间神器，一玩起来就不想关上，一关上就想不起来打开

Don't be fooled by the cards. This is not a card game, it's a crafting game, and the cards merely represent the ingredients and objects you use to craft things. As for what you're crafting in this game... effectively you're crafting yourself. I mean, you can craft actual objects, but those tend to become items that you use in your ever more ambitious quest to upgrade your skills and your soul. You read books to get lessons and memories, which you can use to gain skills or upgrade skills. These skills basically represent your understanding of various abstract, occult ideas. As you get more of them, you can use them to gain or upgrade aspects of your soul or personality, which allow you to read and understand more difficult books. Ultimately you're heading towards some kind of enlightenment. This is one of those games where I would say that possibly it's the best game of its kind. If you don't like games that focus almost entirely on crafting, then this is not for you, but if you do like that kind of thing, then I don't know of a game in that genre that's better than Book of Hours. It's abstract and convoluted in the best kind of way. I'd also say that it's possibly one of the best representations of occult mythology in games.

If you buy this game I hope you enjoy it more than I did. I found it to be very opaque and difficult to understand. It's not just that it's complex, rather for me it was so difficult to understand that the genuinely great aesthetics and theme were impossible to enjoy. Again, I genuinely hope you enjoy this game more than I did.

When I started playing Book of Hours, I was apprehensive about it. Cultist Simulator, Weather Factory's previous game, had fascinated but ultimately stressed me out. How grateful I was then, when I found out that Book of Hours is almost entirely stress free game. The Librarian is above worldly concerns like eating or being pursued by federal agents, they're just here for the books. Book of Hours is first and foremost a game about exploration and reading. Almost anything you can interact with in the game either has slots where you can place objects or attribute and ability cards. In many cases, this grants you access to books. The many different books of the library of Hush House are filled with occult knowledge and unlocking them lets you improve your librarian which in turns lets you explore further. The game invites you to explore not just your new place of residence but also its many different systems and even provides you a few hidden riddles and easter eggs. As you develop your occult abilities with what you've learned from the books in the library, you will be able to assign those abilities to the Tree of Wisdom, granting you more basic attribute cards, which the game calls Elements of the Soul. For certain more complex books you will need to combine attributes, abilities, tools found around Hush House and so-called Memories. These memories are temporary ressources you can generate from various sources and the game had me keeping a list on where to get which memory so I could have the right one on hand whenever I wanted it. You would obviously not be a librarian if you would not periodically receive strange and mystical visitors with occult questions of their own. If you have a fitting piece in your catalogue, you can let them peruse it, or you might offer them some occult currency in exchange for them teaching you something. The game has so many more systems that all fit together into an awesome bigger picture and really offer tons to sink your teeth into. The background music is fairly muted, but atmospheric and underlines the contemplative mood of the game. I want to put special note on the visuals. Even though the game mainly works with symbology, I found what art it had extremely evocative and felt drawn in by the many different illustrations, be it on attributes, the library itself or other parts, I was highly enamored with what's on offer here. I wholeheartedly recommend Book of Hours because few games have fascinated me to the degree that I kept multiple documents about aspects of the game! If you enjoy games that feel highly rewarding to explore, enjoy piecing together an understanding from lore snippets and the theme of occult libraries, you really can't go wrong here. Just don't go in expecting something incredibly action-packed. Quick note: I played the game with the expansion House of Light which to my understanding added some immensely cool systems that really elevated the experience while not feeling tacked on in the slightest. I think playing the base game without expansion first still offers a complete and fulfilling experience but the expansion certainly added the icing on the cake for me.

Game is crazy good, but best for a specific audience. Truthfully I dropped it after progressing a lot the first playthrough because I kept hitting dead-ends, many things are discovered-not-explained. I didn't try enough things or dig deep enough. If you're willing & interested in starting a multi-page excel sheet AS SOON as you open the game and are down to make detailed tables for everything then this game is 100% for you. You are an esoteric Librarian, better start acting like one and documenting ~EVERYTHING~

男中翻又藏不住了 赞助人和女赞助人那里英文明显做了性别区分 到了你这又变成男的作为第一性了？再强调自己的第一性也改变不了专业度和对自己性别的自卑以及对其她性别的排挤 心胸狭隘

I am suspicious. This is not the sort of game I play, or have ever considered playing. Yet, for some reason, I just bought both this and its DLC. Then, for the last several minutes, I have begun to play it although it's well after midnight. Yet it feels more like I am the one being played by the game. So far, I discern neither rhyme nor reason to it. And yet, oddly, I know that I shall continue with this. Could it be the result of ... some sort of sorcery? I feel compelled to give it two uneasy thumbs up. No, not out of fear: after all, am I not a rational person? Yes, I'm sure of that. So I must have a good reason, which will no doubt become more obvious when the night turns back into morning. Continuing Addendum: morning came and then the afternoon. The game sat idle. But when the moon rose, my will to explore the game returned. Dreaming must have provided me with a clue, because a few moments ago I was able to enter a town that I couldn't even see last night. But what now? Several new days dawn and die. Something is progressing. Can I figure out just what ... and in time? It feels better to figure when I am not distracted by the sun. But that does not mean the moon provides comfort as something here demands my time. Days pass. Nights are spent exploring. And now I must amend this, yet again, because I've just found my way in (to what, I won't disclose and thereby spoil). Now I find myself astonished at the vastness of the possibility that confronts me. Suddenly, I begin to sense how somebody stalwart, clever and curious could have wandered here for more than a thousand hours. This is more than it seemed at first. Much more.

让我们拜请老友，不眠不休之神，瞬间移动之神，任劳任怨之神，他（们）的神力谅必能够帮助我们涤净居屋