An absolutely beautifully crafted game full of style and voice acting!
I just wish I didn't have such a hard time playing it. Accidentally lighting multiple candles then watching them all burn out as I frantically try to solve puzzles was a nightmare. Then having to play in incognito mode to reset the progress to get the candles back was a pain. I know it's a jam game and these things happen so it wasn't a huge deal.
I swear those candles burn out faster than 60 seconds but I even timed and and for sure they do I guess when you're under stress trying to figure out what to do 60 seconds suddenly feels like such a short time!
I have to admit the puzzles were kinda difficult. (Spoilers to anyone who hasn't played the game yet!). The first puzzle being "Sir Newton" requires outside knowledge from the game to know that 1. He was knighted as a Sir and 2. His surname is Newton. I know this is fairly common knowledge and I was able to solve it but others might not have such a easy time with it. I also think the numbers on the books gives it an extra level of confusion that maybe wasn't needed.
I got as far as the garden/greenhouse. I understood that I had to change the colour of my light but having it hidden way in the settings menu seems like a really bad choice in my opinion. The only reason I knew that option was there was because I opened the settings the first time I played the game and saw it and thought "ooh that's a nice accessibility feature" until I realised it was a game mechanic.
I could not pass the garden. I changed my light to every possible colour I could and clicked everywhere I could to try and find the ingredients. I found 2 sets of them in the pots and on the vine stalks that appear but I could not find the last one and eventually when all my candles burned out I just gave up because I couldn't be bothered starting again.
The mechanics are fantastic I just wish they were easier to access and understand and the stress of having to juggle my burning out supply of candles didn't really help.
Anyways the art and style is fantastic it's all very well drawn and reads extremely well the choice of simple black and white makes it very easy to understand what I'm looking at (as long as there's light) and the little collectables were cute.
The audio design is fantastic, the music and SFX are great and the voice acting was a really nice and well done surprise. I was genuinely surprised when I heard it because I think it's the first game in the gamejam I've come across where someone has gone to that effort. Great job.
Overall I enjoyed the game but a number of frustrations and issues stopped me from finishing it. I would like to return to the game if these are solved in the future as it was a great game that just wore down my patience. Please keep working on it :)