Bookbinding – Dark Cozy Sim

Let me start by saying dark stories dont bother me. If this was just about the main story line of running from our past and the mistakes we made itd be fine. However, I've played for 6 hours and only by following the most toxic route did i not die. by romancing the abusive guy Nate that never treated us kindly and accepting my fate to obey the noble and make cards for him. And that's just it! it ends with Nate having visiting rights controlled by Otto the noble. being okay with that set up. Nate doesnt like, try and use his influential connections to try and get you out of Ottos grasp knowing you have trauama from your previous master. Nates just like, your rooms nice i get to visit! Bro hates nobles but like "be good, ill see you soon babe". and we just suddenly have like stockholm syndrome??? like we are okay being a tool for Otto and being unable to leave without a guard watching us??? like this is not cozy or cute. It is messed up. no matter what. also why does every game lately involve dead children??? fyi you have the option to kill an orphan that you befriend for power that never impacts the story. You just kill a child who looked up at you as their only family. It's pretty messed up. Like we couldn't sacrifice some beggar, noble, or thug? No it had to be the child you get attached to who is eager to help you! This game is so toxic. The relationship between you and the main Love interest Nate is so abusive. bro is all about control. never showed he cared in childhood nor now and yet you can romance him and despite him still being a jerk, its fine. Nate belittles you but its cool, ya know? If you just hadnt left town in the searches of a more meaninful and happy life and just stayed with your mentally abusive friend and possible crush (its like complicated ya know?) Then you wouldnt have gone through all this pain. Even when you do choose the romance responses with him its all bickering and arguing. Like you get flashbacks on a date where in the past he NEVER allowed you to hang with him, his friends, or his girl of the week cause he found you annoying. But your still his fav so its cool. So toxic. Didn't romance the noble girl Agate because her dialog felt like i was talking to another child. Its never stated if she is an adult either. Just the noblemans daughter who's too hopeful. Im not interested in that so i stuck to just being her friend. Having her as your friend doesnt change your endings with any other route. Just that it introduces a character in more detail who ultimately does nothing. Her help and the help of the woman it introduces does not help you either. Its just pointless dialog right now. Their help doesnt help, you will still die. the results remain the same on the 14th day. if you didn't romance the main toxic guy Nate you just die new power or not. Or you obey Otto. Also, it feels like the bookbinding aspect is an afterthought. Nothing matches with each other. Feels like something they added to break dialog. Also its pretty broken that when trying to type any word with a J in it, it opens up the journal of all the other bindings you did. Like cant use J without that happening. Couldn't we have bound that to a better key or as a button on screen? They advertise the bookbunding heavily but it feels like an afterthought. Don't play. So frustrating.

I'm refunding the game. I knew it was labeled as a "dark" cozy sim, but I agree with another reviewer who says this should not have the "wholesome" tag. I'm fine with dark stories, I play quite a few of them, but this was presented as a little dark when it turns out [spoiler] we killed our former employer because he wanted to use a ritual to kill us to absorb our magic. [/spoiler]. It just not what I was expecting, especially after meeting the character [spoiler] Agate [/spoiler]. I didn't mind that the game was asking me to do not great things, I just wasn't expecting THIS game to ask me to [spoiler] sacrifice a child [/spoiler] when the trailer mentions going back home. My own fault for not reading more of the reviews or read more of the images on the page that show some of the dialog. But I check games for mature content warnings at the bottom of the steam page and none are listed, so really had no idea how dark it was gonna get. I'm not asking for much but mentioning [spoiler] a murder and possible ritual sacrifice [/spoiler] would have been nice. SOMETHING. Just adding "dark fantasy" I'd have felt more prepared and maybe looked into my purchase more. And this was in the "wholesome" event recently. Another thing that sort of made me not think it would get THAT dark. I kind of enjoyed the bookbinding but it wasn't working that well. No matter what I did, after I was shown how to 'fill' in the stencils, it just changed the color of the book overall.

TLDR: I liked bookbinding, did not like MC. I enjoyed the bookbinding mechanics a lot, very much like another game I've played called Sticky Business. Played a little over two hours, and while repairing books was fun, I found the main character to be pretty unlikeable. Their backstory is clearly tragic and traumatic, but after a couple hours, I left the game feeling like an exhausted therapist. Additionally, I find the 'wholesome' user tag to be pretty misleading for the story this game currently has. It's generally pretty grim (there are *some* moments in the game that , depending on your choices, can be more gentle or wholesome) but the game really focuses on both the main character's lifelong traumas as well as the societal inequalities that exist in this game's world. There's a lot of mature material here, such as mentions of abuse, bullying, sexual assault, enslavement, toxic relationships etc. Enough that after two hours, I was not feeling cozy, I was not feeling wholesome. The main character is traumatized and miserable and it starts to rub off on you. In the kindest way I can say this, the writing for MC feels a bit like one of those author-insert MCs from Fanfiction.net. My fanfic homies might know what I mean. The MC stayed pretty miserable no matter what dialogue option I chose, and I was often left unsatisfied by the dialogue options available to me even when I was trying to avoid the MC being an ass (even if it was sometimes warranted). I'm not a writer, I'm not sure how this could be fixed (or maybe the story they're trying to tell just isn't for me), but I can see they were trying to embrace a dark fantasy vibe within the story's setting . Maybe the MC's story would have benefitted from a trickle-in/slow-burn pacing , rather than immediately dumping them in our lap while they are currently at their lowest point and unable to do anything other than emotionally and mentally destroy themselves several times a day in the shop. It kinda puts the player in crisis mode and you just kinda stand there binding books and trying to dissociate, waiting for the other shoe to drop and hoping you guide the MC toward options that won't get them or others killed while they lash out at themselves and everyone around them. And in fairness, I did not finish this game, it's possible that the story and characters improve as you play further than I did. You can hit up other reviews or the Discussions board to see the opinions of people that made it the whole way through. Some of the other characters do have intriguing things going on, and you catch little glimpses of those when they come into your shop.

I got to the end and it was disappointing. It seemed abrupt and didn't tie in multiple other characters who said they had plans. The cards barely came into it for me. There was a lot that was intriguing but it all just fell flat. [spoiler] I got a special card from the beggar lady and never had a chance to use it. I gave myself up so the boy sent to rob would be set free and he wouldn't look at me 'for good reason'. I just got you out of jail! I went the non-violent route, not wanting to kill or dig up people in my bookbinding game apparently that means I'm just screwed. It's not a cozy game when there are stressful choices and I'm doomed to kill someone or forever be entrapped.[/spoiler] I think it's not accurate to say this is a cozy game.

I'm not gonna be overly strict with my review because the game literally just came out (and it's an indie project) but it personally just wasn't for me like I thought it would be. Pros: There are a lot of customization options, you're able to change the texture of your covers, you're able to add patterns, you can change the colors of many things that you place, I LOVE the color picker and that there's a color wheel, I love that you can save colors for the future many many more good things that I can say about the game Cons: I disliked that I couldn't change the size of the eraser (maybe you can, it wasn't in the tutorial nor was I able to find a button or slider for it. I also didn't like the layering. I couldn't change the layers on certain stuff or if I already placed the stencil I couldn't delete it (as far as I could tell) and I can understand why you wouldn't be able to since it's a permanent thing but I still found it annoying. I also prefer voice acted games as I like listening to something when I read (again, it's indie so please take that with a grain of salt, it isn't a dealbreaker whatsoever) Final overall: I recommend this game because I love the art style, I love the concept, I like that you can get really creative when it comes to designing covers because they offer many design choices. I personally just dislike it because I personally find the game boring and I don't see myself playing it in the future since the gameplay loop nor does the story grasp my attention. In case my review was too long and you don't feel like reading: ---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☑ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☐ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☑ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Game Size }--- ☑ Floppy Disk ☐ Old Fashioned ☐ Workable ☐ Big ☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive ☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it ☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☑ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☐ 9 ☐ 10

I really loved the idea of this game, but it just feels rushed and unfinished. The story ended abruptly, and the narration felt like it was trying to sweep that fact under the rug. I know building branching narrative arcs is difficult and time-consuming, but if resources were limited in development, plot lines like the "romance" arcs (which are minimal), could have been omitted for a more in-depth main plotline (Strange Horticulture/Strange Antiquities, for example).

I haven't been hooked on a game like this in a while. I enjoy the artstyle, the bookbinding mechanic is a very cute edition, and i loved the cast of characters and learning more about my OWN character, too. However, I don't know how much I can recommend this game to other people at this time. There are 15 days to playthrough, I've only played one run so far so I can't attest for all routes, but the one I played felt rushed at the end. I felt like I got to a climax and things were starting to click together, and then I abruptly click on to a "Thank you for playing!" screen. There were quite a few questions unanswered (which is not a dealbreaker for me, I can deal with that,) but it ended so suddenly that I truly was shocked that was all. I thought maybe I missed something or there was an upcoming update for more days, but I couldn't see anything about the current playtime of content. I do love the game, but it was very disapointing to feel like there was no real closure to everything I'd done thus far. If that doesn't bother you then I think it's a beautiful game to play for yourself, but I don't think it's worth it at the moment if you play for the story.

dark cozy is a perfect description what this game is. it has a great, rich detective story, but what we actually do is peacefully decorate little books. honestly so i bought it mainly for the story, because i already liked it in the demo, but fans of meditative gameplay should enjoy it too shortly i recommend it! the mystery is interesting, the characters are great, and you can romance them. lol, what else do you even need from a choice based story???