Hunter's Seal

[b]A delightful game![/b] It's fun, and plays exactly as you'd expect it to—with small twists along the way. It lasts [b]2 hours[/b], though it does have an Endless Mode. To me, $7 for the 2-hour experience was [b]totally worth it![/b] I'd love to see more games like this—i.e., fantasy guild management—so I'm happy to support it. The downsides are easily forgivable: the currency has no use if you're doing well, the graphics can have minor issues, and the NPC lines frequently repeat. Also, I would've liked extra depth/mechanics, since the core game is great!

A chill game without any timers that gets you thinking. Personally, I think there's some room for improvement. Selecting 'Invalid Permit' for incorrect weapon type didn't occur to me at first. The character art is rough around the edges. I would have loved to see more choices for the day-to-day expenses that would have an ongoing influence. But the pacing was pleasant, the experience novel, and the emerging storyline curious and engaging. I'm happy that I bought this and hope the developer will spruce it up a bit more.

Almost a full game. I want to recommend it, but can't. The game has a fun core loop. The checks you need to do are well done and has a nice theme. But I feel it's lacking something to make it complete. Maybe it's because the story dilemmas are optional. The previous clerk was corrupt, but we can simply not make any mistakes and nothing bad happens. Or maybe it needs an additional challenge or choice to make, like not having enough adventurers to deal with all requests. Right now, if you have enough attention span, you can simply have your cake and eat it too.

This gets a thumbs up with an asterisk. It is a watered down version of Papers Please. Which is great for kids and grown people without an attention span, but would like to take steps towards achieving one. Personally, I would rather have my kids playing games like this then Fortnight, Roblox or Auto-pets. When I was a kid. I put over 1,000 hours into some scholastic kids game series. We don't have games like that anymore. This game is one of the only games I've seen that is simple enough for kids, while giving them the ability to learn lifelong skills. Diligence, attention to detail, memory, logic, etc. Without a roadmap for a few key improvements. I don't think it is worth 7 dollars. I would happily pay 3-4$ for this as is. But with only a few improvements it could reach the 7$ mark. Papers Please is 31 days and 20 endings. This game is like 15 days with "4" endings. But stories in these games is kinda meh to me. What actually matters are the mechanics. Fake stamps in this game. 1 stamp, 2 potential anomalies. Missing arm or missing tail. Mkay. And you don't even have to remember it, cus it is on the wall behind the paper. The amount of monsters is slightly underwhelming. But could be fixed by adding a monster who pretended to be monsters from other regions or Humans blaming monsters for their own evil doings. Instead you can only say, that monster doesn't exist. Which doesn't really make sense. However. The other mechanics are great and perfectly defined. No grey area. Which is the most imperative thing for true logic puzzles. Stuff that could be added: -Realistic Measures: For example. An elf walks in with a license that says human. But their ears are just sitting there out in the open. They could try and hide it with their hair. Wear a helmet. Humans could tape ears onto theirs. etc. There is nothing that realistically challenges player assumptions. It makes all of these characters seem like morons. Cus they brazenly lay down awful paperwork and do not care at all. Did they not even check their papers before lying them down? Why can't we fire the person processing these hunters for their licenses? Idk. It feels like there are a few things that could be tightened up a bit. -A bit more fun: Idk. A back and fourth between characters. A joke character like the guy from papers please who hand drew his passport. Love that guy. More development with the dog. Like... It doesn't matter. Just having it sit there doesn't make you attached to it. Have it bring you food to save you money. Add a still frame of it curled up at the foot of your bed. etc. This game flirts with fun ideas. But it is clear this was thrown out of the oven early. -More options for depth: Like... The ability to choose what weapon the hunters use to fight what monster. An elf shows up with an B rank in great-sword, hammer and longbow. But needs to fight a B rank crab with resistances to slash and pierce. So you'd need to choose the hammer. Which relies on you having matched the monster correctly. Cus as is, it seems like the guild doesn't want to hunt the monsters. Denying a hunter cus they are the wrong fit? Why? At the end of each day you'd have a pool of hunters sitting around. Why not allow for a matching game or something to try and make more money? Papers please is only a bureaucratic simulator. You have different avenues available to you in this style of game that you aren't currently using. If this is a meant to be a kids game, I'd lean into that a bit more in the marketing. If you want this game to catch on... It needs a bit more. To wrap it up: This game was not engaging enough for me. Idk if it was the soothing elevator music putting me to sleep, or the simplified nature of the logic puzzles. I spent more time asking myself, "There is no way it is that easy." And triple checking everything. Then I did engaging with the material. Psychological horror. However. As mentioned. I have been playing with logic puzzles since I was 4. And it is something I really enjoy doing. I beat this game and checked for a roadmap. Lacking a roadmap, it seems like this is it. And there isn't enough here for me personally. I can handle and enjoy papers please. However. I think this game masterfully walks the line between being challenging enough to where you have to know what you are doing to succeed, and being simple enough that anyone can do it. This is a very impressive game. And if I had kids I would love for them to play this.

Honestly playing this game is nothing like how it is advertised. There is no way to fail if you do not make mistakes with the monster hunts. There are no interactions with the npcs that are listed in the description of the store page beyond a passing after rejecting them and or them telling you to just pass it through. So Technically they do threaten you and or chew you out if they do not agree with you not letting them do the quest. But its not a back and forth nor do they bribe you. Really the only thing that is done at all are the main story plot points which start or end the day. I made it to day five where things are meant to get more interesting but its more or less just make sure everything is in order and either follow the cult with out getting fired for a different ending or do not make a mistake ever and get the normal ending. There is no other game play here even though they are said to try "Bribe, threaten, ect" and well they don't really do any of that.

Hunter's Seal is a fun workplace simulator of the kind which is mostly focused on simple puzzles. There is almost no resource management, almost no dialogs, and no central narrative. The puzzles are well designed. Mostly we need to spot relevant information in the monster compendium and interpret visual clues (the 2D art is quite nice too) while keeping track of a few simple rules. For a workplace simulator, the game is quite short. We won't get access to any new tools over the course of the game. The dialogs are too bare-bones, and canned replies don't always fit the situation. The store page says that some hunters "will try to bribe, charm, or even threaten their way past you." I'm not quite sure that's accurate because as soon as an application is rejected, the hunter leaves, so the bribe/charm/threaten feature doesn't seem to exist in the game. The game has five possible endings. The UI is generally good; several documents can be kept open at the same time and freely rearranged. One missing feature is the ability to close a window by right-clicking.

It's fine. For 10 bucks, it's a watered down fantasy style Papers, Please with none of the suspense. I only never ate food to see what effect it had, but never felt like i had to do it to save money for anything.

Nice puzzle game that's about 2 hours long for a single playthrough.

It's closer to That's Not My Neighor than Papers Please, but it's still a nice little game.

It's an okay game. Needs some QoL improvements like sorting and hotkeys.