I’ll just be a party pooper and say I don't really care about the ARG factor of it.
I understand that this is one of the main appealing factors of this game and that the creator of it has done this stuff in the past (with this game connecting to his previous game, Pony Island) but I honestly couldn’t be bothered to care less about it.
If I had to summarize my feelings about this game, I’d say it’s like I’m eating a large cake that you tell me I’ll really enjoy, a cake that you tell me has a super cool toy inside of it that will take center of everything and be meaningful (that being the ARG shit). I bite into it, and I get a lovely taste of chocolate and fall in love with it (aka the first Act and doing Leshy’s part and absolutely adoring the gameplay and setting). I start to get an idea about the story and soon figure out that there will be different flavors divided up into each part and will enjoy each for their uniqueness but being similar enough to the first flavor (how I thought the game would go with each card scribe leading their own part of the game and having their own unique style of play). However, after I finished the first flavor, I lost interest in the idea of getting that toy I learned about earlier and kinda don’t really care about it anymore, I get lost in the treats and simply just want to eat the cake and enjoy it by itself. It’s a convoluted and dumb analogy and I understand that tons of people are going to really enjoy the ARG stuff, hell I love analogue horror stuff and watch tons of it and have played similar games, but in this case, I couldn’t be bothered to care about it.
It 100% isn’t an awful game, I do understand what it’s doing and I kinda vibe with it, but I truly don’t care about the analogue stuff in this case and ended up skipping some of it. Act 1 and Act 3 were great, they were what I expected the game to be, and I loved it. I didn’t like Act 2 at all, I felt like I was just speedrunning it and just wanted to get through it all, with the other complaint being the lack of guidance and how it jumps so much stuff onto you in Act 2 as opposed to how the game treated you in Act 1. The ending of the game where you start to play all the scribe's stuff is where I wanted it to all go and I felt like I was getting teased with everything only for it all to lead to nothing.
Kinda sad, obviously it is mostly a me problem I guess but still, kinda sucky.
I understand that this is one of the main appealing factors of this game and that the creator of it has done this stuff in the past (with this game connecting to his previous game, Pony Island) but I honestly couldn’t be bothered to care less about it.
If I had to summarize my feelings about this game, I’d say it’s like I’m eating a large cake that you tell me I’ll really enjoy, a cake that you tell me has a super cool toy inside of it that will take center of everything and be meaningful (that being the ARG shit). I bite into it, and I get a lovely taste of chocolate and fall in love with it (aka the first Act and doing Leshy’s part and absolutely adoring the gameplay and setting). I start to get an idea about the story and soon figure out that there will be different flavors divided up into each part and will enjoy each for their uniqueness but being similar enough to the first flavor (how I thought the game would go with each card scribe leading their own part of the game and having their own unique style of play). However, after I finished the first flavor, I lost interest in the idea of getting that toy I learned about earlier and kinda don’t really care about it anymore, I get lost in the treats and simply just want to eat the cake and enjoy it by itself. It’s a convoluted and dumb analogy and I understand that tons of people are going to really enjoy the ARG stuff, hell I love analogue horror stuff and watch tons of it and have played similar games, but in this case, I couldn’t be bothered to care about it.
It 100% isn’t an awful game, I do understand what it’s doing and I kinda vibe with it, but I truly don’t care about the analogue stuff in this case and ended up skipping some of it. Act 1 and Act 3 were great, they were what I expected the game to be, and I loved it. I didn’t like Act 2 at all, I felt like I was just speedrunning it and just wanted to get through it all, with the other complaint being the lack of guidance and how it jumps so much stuff onto you in Act 2 as opposed to how the game treated you in Act 1. The ending of the game where you start to play all the scribe's stuff is where I wanted it to all go and I felt like I was getting teased with everything only for it all to lead to nothing.
Kinda sad, obviously it is mostly a me problem I guess but still, kinda sucky.