The Apothecary's Assistant

The Apothecary’s Assistant is an unusual beast. It’s set in a mysterious shop where you can work between one and three shifts per day—in real time. A day’s gameplay consists of doing one small task—such as selecting a recipe to make for a customer or playing a game of Mad Libs with a child—and then, optionally, talking briefly to the shop’s owner, Aïssatou, and solving some cryptic crossword clues. Despite the title, there’s not a lot of herbalism going on, just an assortment of low-stakes odd jobs.

I’m charmed by the overall conceit; it’s a bold idea and I was eager to see how it played out. I also love cryptic crosswords, so I had fun with that aspect of the gameplay. I can’t say how it plays for people who don’t have prior experience with cryptics, but the clues seemed reasonably “entry-level” to me, not requiring deep knowledge of cryptic lingo, and the repetition in the first three clues seemed like a helpful way to get people on board.

That said, with each session being so short (five minutes at most) and the sessions being so spaced out, I never really got immersed in the game, and I had trouble retaining anything about the characters (other than Aïssatou, since she’s always around). Between sessions, I was left with a vague impression of a charming woodland setting and very little else (besides the cryptics). All things considered, I did enjoy the game quite a bit, I just wish each individual session had been a little meatier.

I did six shifts and solved all the cryptic clues, which gave me a satisfying resolution to Aïssatou’s personal story, but I know that there are many more anecdotes I haven’t seen and customers I haven’t met, and would be interested in going back and spending more time with it later.

This game is very unusual. It changes based on the calendar day.

The idea is that you are helping out at a shop in a fantasy setting and are paid in acorns. Each calendar day you can earn acorns by completing a task (usually selecting between two pictures based on a description), solve some cryptic crossword clues, and talk to the shop owner. Then there is nothing else you are allowed to do, so you can just wait until the next day.

I had struggled before with completing Ryan Veeder's Authentic Fly Fishing, a game with similar mechanics. Before, I couldn't put a finger on why.

Now I think I know. The issue is that every day I choose for myself the most important things I need to get done. During IFComp, playing a new game is one of those tasks. Finishing a game I'm in the middle of is important, too. But doing a small amount of work in an ongoing task somehow feels less important than starting or finishing, so I shelve it.

Then, days later, I come back to it, not remembering anything. When I play a game all at once or over several days, I immerse myself in it and focus on it, holding all the plot in my head as well as I can. Then I mentally summarize it to myself and let all the rest leak out of my brain, leaving only the summary, and whenever I think of the game, that's what I think of.

With this game and Fly Fishing, I never had a chance to digest the whole game. Because I played out of context each day, I didn't know what was important to remember. So I honestly have no clue how the game started or what the setting exactly is. I think we're in a magical fairy forest and the shopkeeper is a kind of animal, and there was a page given us at one point. But I couldn't say more than that.

Of course I could have looked it up for this review, but I wanted the author to get a glimpse into my deranged mind to see what one player's experience was like.

The cryptic crossword clues were fun, albeit hard (like most such to me). Upon my request, the author made a very helpful visual crossword that made it a bit easier. I also used some online crossword dictionaries, but didn't look at others' hints. The thing that got me most stuck early on was that I was convinced that the clue (Spoiler - click to show)small demon would certainly have (Spoiler - click to show)a different solution each time, and was shocked as I realized today (after two weeks of thinking about it) that that wasn't so.

Overall, the game is creative and polished, and provides interactivity that's engaging. Due to its format, I struggled to hold onto a summary of the plot in my mind.

The game also had a charity donation segment, but I'm not including that in my score, as I wouldn't want it to become a trend for games to get upvoted based on financial donations the author makes (or to get downvoted for not doing so). I don't think it's bad, I just think it should be separate from the scoring system.