itch.io

After a quick glance at the manual to understand the objective, I immediately became engrossed. Solving the puzzles gives a similar sensation to solving Zachtronics games, which I adore, but done in a way that is more accessible to more general puzzle gamers. The gradual introduction of mechanics is superbly executed, the UI is clean without sacrificing aesthetic, and the flavor is immaculate.

The only criticism I can make is that I find the font a bit difficult to read. But since that only amounts to a few UI/button labels, I cannot say that it hindered my experience in any way. Very well done!

I'm a sucker for stealth platformers and silly premises, so this easily drew my interest. I had a lot of fun playing it, though I found the wall climb mechanic made platforming feel a bit "sticky" in a mildly frustrating way, as it felt like the Meowchemist would grab onto even small corners to wall climb. It also felt a bit superfluous, but I may not have been able to get far enough to encounter areas where it was necessary. Overall, with a bit more tuning and polish, I could easily see myself playing and replaying this.

I did my best to make all necessary information at least minimally available in-game. If any in-game explanations are lacking or unclear, that is unintended. All the tools for deciphering the texts should be available in-game as well, although a pen and paper or open notepad would be helpful to keep track of key letters as you work through them. I also did not do a thorough job of play testing each text's deciphering, so I may have accidentally made some of them arbitrarily difficult or tedious.

The intended gameplay loop is to begin by typing "scry" (without quotation marks, followed by enter) to get a list of commands, then "scry <command>" to get detailed information on a command. For example, "scry vc" will tell how to use the vc (Vigenère cipher) command, including an explanation of how the Vigenère cipher works. Repeat for each command and you should be able to deduce how to use them to begin cracking each ciphertext.

I like the basic mechanics and see a lot of potential to flesh out the gameplay loop and expand on the  mechanics. It's very fun to engage with, despite the lack of balance.

I also noticed that Chalice of Life seems to be bugged---it appears as though its action isn't consuming its resource, allowing it to be used an indefinite number of times in a single day. If Chalice of Life is drawn early enough, exploiting this is a guaranteed win condition, as it produces exactly the resources needed by Sunken Reef to get victory points.

That's quite the high compliment...! I think?

I had a couple friends playtest it this weekend. Based on their results, I believe I may have severely misjudged the difficulty.