Ratings and Reviews by Tabitha

I playtested this game and have replayed the published version. I can’t really comment on the difficulty of the puzzles because I remembered all the solutions from when I tested (and the ones I struggled with a bit when testing have been updated since), but here are my thoughts otherwise!

First, the game is just plain fun. I enjoyed the slightly wacky magical university setting, learning about the mishaps inherent to this kind of school and the safety measures in place to mitigate them, the rivalries between the philosophy and chemistry departments, and other bits of lore. Of course, as a little blobby synthesis familiar, the PC doesn’t care about any of that! They care about increasing their abilities so they can escape and have their revenge on the creator who abandoned them. I enjoyed the progression of gaining new abilities and realizing/discovering where they’d be useful to gain access to new places and/or abilities, especially given that most were used for multiple puzzles; I liked getting to apply them in a variety of situations. (Spoiler - click to show)The prepare/escape power was especially cool, creating a navigation puzzle with one-way teleportation. The number of powers never got overwhelming, either; each has such limited, specific use cases that there was no temptation (or need) to lawnmower. (Spoiler - click to show)Soliloquize, the one ability that’s not needed to solve any puzzles, was a nice extra touch, increasing my engagement by letting me (pretend to) make grand speeches at dramatic moments.

The dynamically updating map is great; I love a handy in-game map, and very much appreciated the convenience of being able to click on a room to travel there. I did find, on this replay at least, that the exclamation points marking the room(s) where you can progress were a little too much; I wanted to have to think a little more about where to go/what to do next, instead of just gravitating to the exclamation point.

Finally, my only other more critical thought is that I felt conflicted about consuming the other familiars. They’re alive on some level, at least as sentient as our blob PC, so while the PC certainly has no qualms, I balked a little as a player, not liking the thought that I was overpowering and killing these creatures. This is very idiosyncratic to me of course, but I’ll always prefer teamwork/compassionate approaches over violence/aggression. But this definitely didn’t bother me enough to impede my enjoyment of the game!

Another comp game that I'm a bit torn about, although the parts I liked made it one of my favorites this year. As a sucker for historical settings, I loved exploring the lighthouses and pubs of mid-nineteenth-century Baltimore and meeting people dressed in gibuses and gabardine (well, I actually encountered both of those items while they were not being worn, but you get the point). I loved the way the plot unfolded as I collected clues and pieced together what had happened to Poe and what was going on with the mysterious characters around him. When I did some Wikipedia-ing after finishing, I was impressed by how well the game was written around the actual circumstances of Poe’s death!

On the other hand, the present-day sections were significantly less engaging to me. That layer’s PC was so minimally fleshed out that I wasn’t really invested in him as a character (I don’t think gender is ever specified, actually, but I definitely imagined this PC as a man); we don’t get any backstory to reveal why he was willing to go to such lengths to achieve his goal of being known for writing without having actually written anything. And as a writer myself, that goal was impossible for me to relate to!

I quite enjoyed this game; highlights were the progression of newcomer knowing no one to being part of the community, the coziness of the setting, the several main NPCs’ stories, and the casual queerness. I did neglect my meal-planning a bit at first in favor of the social aspects, as I'm not much of a cook or foodie, but I hit 4 stars on a meal eventually!

Lowlights: I found the sheer number of recipes I could make by the end (having bought all the cookbooks) a bit overwhelming, and largely ignored some categories (sorry, salad- and sauce-lovers!). I also was a little confused on the theming, as I tried to do a regionally-themed meal but didn’t receive a bonus for it. My only other real friction point was that I didn’t learn how to get berries until over halfway through, and since my third noticeboard request was for a berry pie, I was stuck sitting on that one for a while. But these are minor complaints about what was overall a charming, pleasant, and well-made game!