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Review
This game is very sweet, very cute, and it's a breath of fresh air to play. The map is more than a nice added aid, it's part of its visual identity. Sometimes you just want to play a game that's unironically wholesome, just because. It helps if it doesn't talk down to you, which I don't think this one does.
Just has one big problem for me. One of the final puzzles, though it makes sense, requires you to experiment a bit to find a hidden property of an inventory item. It's a perfectly logical property. But... the game isn't built to encourage experimentation. It's rather bare-bones. You aren't really encouraged to interact with stuff; even if, say, the game has a history of very bare descriptions that only really tell you about the one or two things in the room you can interact with, and then one room has a very interesting-looking item. Let's say, a log with moss very proeminently described. Not only do all the interactions with this interesting item fall flat, the game says it "can't see any moss".
This is a design problem because it doesn't encourage experimentation. And one of the puzzles requires experimentation.
This is compounded by the characters, with whom you can talk about basically nothing. This is usually a clear sign to me that a game doesn't expect me to try and explore and experiment. It just wants me to follow the prompts. I'm fine with obliging, but then I'm not in the mindset to colour outside the lines to see what happens. Why should I? The game taught me it's pointless.
The hint system also failed me here. It basically told me I had everything I needed to solve the puzzle, but not in any way that actually helped me solve it.
So it was a nice experience while it lasted, but it either needed a) more clueing, or b) much more detailed worldbuilding, to encourage experimentation.
Conversely, I really enjoyed the puzzles around the "Peter Paul and Mary reference" (no spoilers), which included even identifying it. Those were nice. Those were about connecting some dots in your head.
