Book of Hours (Cultist Sim for Newfags and Normies)

[TotalBiscuitsFuckingGhost]

Book of Hours is a sequel to Cultist Simulator that is releasing it's Demo on Monday Feb 6


[Context]
Despite the name CS was nothing like the shovelware trash Simulators seen around 2015-2017. CS is effectively a resource management board game with an ai GM.
Some have complained that it is Dense or Unapproachable because you aren't handed a Gold Box manual and fellated while a soothing womans voice reads it too you.

They are the same mouth breathing imbeciles that Polygon hires as Jurnos.

Some have complained that it is Twuuuuu Hard because I got my fee-fee hurt and did the funny rope dance.

They are weak, pathetic, and have not learned to abuse opium like a real occultist. (See: Dirty dirty hippy, and/or Blackula)

And finally I don't particularly like The Exile DLC it's not my thing.
[*Get's off soapbox]

Any way that all being said, Book of Hours looks like it's going to completely dumb down the game to Yugioh-Monkey island meets chthulhu.

I haven't played it yet, the demo comes out on monday. Just wanted to see what you freaks thought of CS and BoH?

 

[TotalBiscuitsFuckingGhost]

Book of Hours has released it's demo and it's...not bad. It's a layer more immersive then the table in a black void.
They have a similar vibe with a complex world full of lore that doesn't directly explain shit. I feel that it will be a more RPG looking game than CS, but the Ai GM'ed board-game is still what it mostly is.
If someone made the pathfinder card game into a video-game is it an RPG?

It has complex mechanics and it includes characters that could be themed like RPG characters, but the actual power to play that role is mostly non-existent without handicapping yourself, making things less fun, and playing in a way that was not intended.

I disagree with the classification as an RPG, but I like it for what it is.

Anyway go play Book of Hours you pussies, it's fucking FREE.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

I disagree with the classification as an RPG, but I like it for what it is.

Welcome to the rpgcodex where literally all a game has to do to reach this part of the forum is self identify as an rpg.

Like a man putting on a wig to get access to the girls changing room.

 

[S.torch]

Played the first and was sort of comfy. Will try this one when is out too.

 

[Serus]

I disagree with the classification as an RPG, but I like it for what it is.

Welcome to the rpgcodex where literally all a game has to do to reach this part of the forum is self identify as an rpg.

Like a man putting on a wig to get access to the girls changing room.

It all depends if the man looks good as a woman tranny, right? Some are so ugly that they can be recognised on the spot. Others are almost passable. This game seems to be the former case but i haven't played it so maybe it isn't the case.

 

[Oropay]

You might or might not have found the Cultist Simulator thread
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/cultist-simulator.122187/

Cultist Sim was an excellent game. As someone who's done quite of bit of reading of so called occult literature, the game seemed authentic to me, and not simply by way of verbatim copying widely known works. Thematically, atmopherically, and iconographically the game captures both occultism and the mind + experience of the aspirant, seeker, or whatever you want to call him, particularly in discovery and epiphany. I'm very much looking forward to the release of Book of Hours

 

[Herumor]

The game has released yesterday. Surprised no one made a post about it so far. Enjoying myself, though I think I enjoyed Cultist Simulator more. Wonderful soundtrack.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

The game has released yesterday. Surprised no one made a post about it so far. Enjoying myself, though I think I enjoyed Cultist Simulator more. Wonderful soundtrack.

I was going to look at this but my time is reserved for Armored Core VI so I guess it will have to find a place in my 400+ backlog.

 

[Herumor]

The game has released yesterday. Surprised no one made a post about it so far. Enjoying myself, though I think I enjoyed Cultist Simulator more. Wonderful soundtrack.

I was going to look at this but my time is reserved for Armored Core VI so I guess it will have to find a place in my 400+ backlog.

I feel you - I recently got Baldur's Gate 3, then I got Book of Hours, then there's Bomb Rush Cyberfunk today and next week it's Armored Core 6. August is really stacked with games I'm interested in.

 

[Perkel]

I find it weirdly both good and bad. Good because it is definitely improvement over mechanics of Cultist Simulator and away with idiotic time grind but on other hand idk why i find it just more boring to play. I like the ideas behind it but Cultist Simulator was way more interesting in sense that you wanted to experience what was next ahead in your belief. It was like uncovering mystery, going from non believer to believer, things like that. Here it feels more like i am cleaning help. Sure there are mysteries but they are laid out plainly from game start.

I think another mechanic i don't like is how you need costant help to explore. IT just doesn't feel "right" in game like that. When i saw mansion and locked rooms i thought it would be more like me trying to figure out some secret to get somewhere further but no. You just hire someone and they open door for you.

IDK need to play more than 5 hours. So far it seems like better Cultist Simulator mechanics wise but worse Cultist Simulator where it matters aka "soul" and "mystery"

edit: another thing i don't like is how i need to constantly zoom in zoom out camera. I get that they didn't want map to scroll constantly on map but their fix isn't any better as you need to constantly zoom in zoom out.

 

[Perkel]

And I am out. Game is just tedious to play providing essentially nothing back. It removed time grind from CS but instead introduced various other mechanics that feels just as grindy to play.

The biggest issue is what i said before about mystery. There isn't any here. At start I thought that books I read are important to get to other parts of house or do various occult stuff like to understand how to open door X i would have to read few books about owner of that room or maybe invest into knock mystery.

Nope. Books are just stats and nothing matters.

What is even worse is when i saw so many skills I thought it was fantastic stuff wow so many skills ! Turns out that they all do pretty much the same thing and only aspect decides what skill does. There are like 7 aspects or something so those 30 ish skill i have are pretty much only 7 and they all are various ways to craft some shitty thing.

Guest arriving and mysteries to solve was something I initially was hoping would improve gameplay but nope. Either occult money or language skill.

It is like they took Cultist Simulator and thought... How about we take all the stuff people hate about CS and make it into game. It's stat game essentially.

 

[Perkel]

I might have been to quick to judge. I think the issue is that I started to play it as Cultist Simulator where everything was on the clock.

I restarted and tried to play it slowly and with that many things started to come in place. Instead of grinding money for help I just started to play around with items a bit and discovered you can just feed your free help certain drinks/food/memories to boost their skills. With first Timothy i was now able to open around 1/4 of house at leisure.

I also don't speed up time anymore nor I run through all my cards to end the day on 0.

At this pace game starts to shine a little bit more. Will keep playing and report back if something changed in my opinion further.

 

[Ialda]

Currently playing this. I have roughly half of the rooms unlocked, and the ones remaining are getting tricky.

I love this game. I hate grindy games, and BoH (like CS) is shock full of grind, but the atmosphere, the additions to the lore off CS, and beside the grind how a large part of the game is just a multi-layered, well-presented puzzle, really won me over.

(disclaimer : I'm the kind of weirdoes who finished CS several times. Granted, I save-scummed like a bastard every times, but still)

The biggest issue is what i said before about mystery. There isn't any here. At start I thought that books I read are important to get to other parts of house or do various occult stuff like to understand how to open door X i would have to read few books about owner of that room or maybe invest into knock mystery.

Reading the books is not important at the start of the game, but believe me, it gets more and more crucial as you progress in the game. It's another part of the puzzle I was speaking about above : you need to understand what is a hint and what does it mean among all the stuff the books give you to unlock recipes, special treasures (very well-hidden special stuff), and ultimately, endings.

Otherwise yeah, it's a much less epic, much more intimate take on the kind of transcendental horror which is Alexis Kennedy's brand than CS.

 

[Perkel]

Otherwise yeah, it's a much less epic, much more intimate take on the kind of transcendental horror which is Alexis Kennedy's brand than CS.

Which is my issue. Because CS from start felt like you were delving into mystery and weird shit was everywhere around every corner. There were some gamified elements but overall you never felt like you going nowhere.

Good example of this are guests. You would think they would be more like CS where each provided something weird but nope. They teach you some language or you give them a book corresponding to stat.

If you had to give them book corresponding to what they are looking for but not in terms of stats but actual content of book that would be awesome. Rewards also should be something else than currency. Like blood, hair, etc. kind of you pay price for help. Someone is infected with worms and you try to uncover some worms stuff. Dude asks for help you give him book that does remove worms (which you collect) but also renders dude dead which gives you body to experiment on.

 

[Ialda]

Which is my issue. Because CS from start felt like you were delving into mystery and weird shit was everywhere around every corner. There were some gamified elements but overall you never felt like you going nowhere.

Both games have inverted trajectories : CS progress outward (you begin as a normie and then you go and learn more and more of the secret rules and ineffable entities that exist beyond reality) while BoH is an inward affair (you are already an initiate when starting the game - possibly even a Long - and your aim is to unearth the various secrets from the house's past to help you resolve your own character arc : what is the secret of Ys, what is the City Unbuilt, can powers from before the Lithomachy come back into the world, various plans or secret stuff about the Sun and the second dawn, etc - all of that while growing vegetables in your garden and giving food to your pets).

Some of the guests may be the authors of some specific books from your collection; I wonder what would happen if you gave a book they have written to its author... ?

 

[Crayll]

Are there no fail states/game overs in this? The writing and sense of discovery in CS was great, but part of the draw for me was balancing your resources and getting some new ritual or dream progression as a reward for a risky gamble (or fucking up and seeing how your character went out). It got tedious and encouraged grinding sometimes, but still, seems like it would be much more boring with no element of risk.

 

[Ialda]

Are there no fail states/game overs in this? The writing and sense of discovery in CS was great, but part of the draw for me was balancing your resources and getting some new ritual or dream progression as a reward for a risky gamble (or fucking up and seeing how your character went out). It got tedious and encouraged grinding sometimes, but still, seems like it would be much more boring with no element of risk.

No fail states, or not really. You can let yourself get into a very difficult situation if you let all you soul cards transform into maladies, or if you read all your books and stockpile lessons right before Numa season, but no game over, I believe.

And no, BoH has no real sense of discovery and progression, compared to CS. But the grind is still here.

 

[Crayll]

Started this with a 'demo copy' and I'm conflicted. The writing is as good as ever, really draws you into the mystery of the world, but man is the gameplay a slog. Open room -> decipher the books -> get memories -> read books -> boost stats -> repeat. I'm only about 1/4 into the house so maybe something will shake it up, but I haven't had a huge leap yet like getting a big summoning ritual or new language in Cultist Simulator, feels very formulaic so far. Also the UI sucks even more than CS, I hate trying to organize all these items.
At the same time I have no desire to stop playing, it's one of those games where you want to take just one more turn... and then it's been another four hours.

 

[Ialda]

At the same time I have no desire to stop playing, it's one of those games where you want to take just one more turn... and then it's been another four hours.

That's exactly where I was for 40 hours, and what I meant by "comfy" : there is no sense of progression into an occult world of secrets like there was for CS, but I wanted to keep playing because reading books while cultivating a garden and rehabiliting an old, mysterious mansion is more or less my dream life.

 

[what am i doing]

Well, I started it. I don't like the camera controls, would prefer a strategic zoom where zooming in also pans the camera towards the mouse. EDIT: this has now been patched in. Alexis is on vacation now but when he gets back I will bug him about implementing a zoom queue so that scrolling works better.
Atmosphere is good. Would prefer more tracks. Lore hasn't been all that interesting so far but I guess a lot of it is paced out more. I do like that they've expanded the magic system with new principles of sorts.

Because I didn't like the origin story I originally wound up with, and I started getting curious about what origins there were, I went back and tested all 12 combinations. In the spoiler below is a list of the 9 backstories / default Tree paths and which soul card combination to pick at the start to get them:

Spoiler

You always start out with the package, half-drowed health, and memory of a Storm. Inspect your package, you get three memories, associated with Soul cards: Shapt, Fet, Chor. You can inspect your package with these, and they will say that what remains of you is Words, Dreams, or Instinct respectively.

Shapt -> Wist - Sand-Scarred Journal. The Archaeologist. Mystery: Winter. Skolekosophy (knock-winter-grail)
Shapt -> Ereb - Bee-Silk Journal. The Artist. Mystery: Grail. The Bosk (moth-heart-grail)
Shapt -> Mettle - Sand-Scarred Journal. The Archaeologist. Mystery: Edge. Skolekosophy (knock-winter-grail)
Shapt -> Phost - Amber-Flecked Journal. The Twice-Born. Mystery: Lantern. Illumination (forge-lantern-edge)

Fet -> Wist - Silver-Bound Journal. The Magnate. Mystery: Winter. Hushery (edge-lantern-winter)
Fet -> Ereb - Bee-Silk Journal. The Artist. Mystery: Grail. The Bosk (moth-heart-grail)
Fet -> Mettle - Ironclad Journal. The Revolutionary. Mystery: Edge. Horomachistry (forge-edge-worm?)
Fet -> Phost - Serpentskin Journal. The Cartographer. Mystery: Lantern. Nyctodromy (moth-lantern-knock)

Chor -> Wist - Feather-Decked Journal. The Symurgist. Mystery: Winter. Birdsong (moth-heart-worm?)
Chor -> Ereb - Bee-Silk Journal. The Artist. Mystery: Grail. The Bosk (moth-heart-grail)
Chor -> Mettle - Horned Journal. The Executioner. Mystery: Edge. Preservation (heart-grail-worm?)
Chor -> Phost - Hammered Copper Journal. The Prodigal. Mystery: Lantern. Ithastry (forge-winter-knock)

Of particular interest: the Twice-Born used to be a Lantern long who reincarnated as a being of flesh again. The Prodigal was born to two Long (aka, the Crime of the Sky) and is fleeing his parents. The Executioner used to work for the Suppression Bureau but feels guilty about all the monsters he slew. So, in Book of Hours you're generally playing as someone potentially already very versed in the occult, which is fitting since a lot of players are already going to have played Cultist Simulator and recognized a lot of this stuff.

The Artist seems to be the most common option (and possibly the most mundane / open-ended), since it always comes up if you go Ereb. Then the Archaeologist, which you have a 50% chance of getting if you chose Shapt first. The Artist might be analogous to the Aspirant from the original CS.

I have a question mark after Worm because it's blacked out and marked with a Suppression Bureau stamp in the Tree.

The friends you get offer a free Assistant for a day (as many times as you like), at the cost of a Soul card (but no money). The friend you get is based on the second Soul card you chose.
Wist - Mr Kille - 2 Winter, 1 Sky
Ereb - Mrs Kille - 2 Grail, 1 Heart
Mettle - Denzil Smith - 2 Forge, 2 Edge
Fet - Reverend Timothy - 2 Lantern, 1 Knock

Soul cards have the following associated principles:
Shapt: Knock (2), Forge
Fet: Rose (2), Moth
Chor: Heart (2), Grail
Wist: Winter(2), Lantern
Ereb: Grail (2), Edge
Mettle: Forge (2), Edge
Phost: Lantern (2), Sky
Trist: Moth (2), Moon
Health: Scale, Nectar, Moon

Health, you have at the start and recover it. Trist, you get no matter what once you start on the Tree of Wisdoms.
If, at the start, you let the timer on your health go down, it goes from Half-Drowned to Freezing, and another timer starts. But then it just becomes Freezing again. There's no secret achievement for dying on the beach. What the fuck, Alexis?

So anyways, I've decided to go with the Cartographer.

One thing I notice here (and I'm not going to spoiler tag it because this is very easily accessible info early on) is that this game might not actually be set in the same History as Cultist Simulator (which seemed as though it was set in our own History). Reverend Timothy is described as being ordained by the Church of the Unconquered Sun. Additionally, the UK appears to have undergone some sort of revolution or monarchist restoration in the 1930s. So whereas CS seemed like it was a "secret world" story set in our own past, Book of Hours seems like it's more of an "alternate history" story. This would also imply that at least some aspects of the occult are out in the open, since the Church of the Unconquered Sun is quite openly affiliated with the Sun-in-Splendour. Edit: also, the description of monetary value (pence) seems to imply that the British Empire already fell; it's described as "the eccentric currency of a fallen empire". Possibly, but not necessarily, this could be referring to the Sovereigns of the Leashed Flame.

Most likely this is set in either the Third or Fourth History; I believe CS is set in the Second.

 

[what am i doing]

I played it some more. I think, as a video game, it's not as good as Cultist Simulator, and a reminder of how games do need to have some form of challenge to be engaging. Cultist Simulator had a mixture of mechanic discovery and threats that had to be balanced, as well as a certain element of time management (every day, you lose one unit of cash, so time is a resource that has to be allocated to tasks rather than being essentially unlimited); Book of Hours just has the mechanic discovery, and so far it seems to be a more simple mechanic discovery (there might be more stuff but so far it seems to be just getting skills, upgrading skills, and crafting stuff at stations). There's less cross-interaction between mechanics. In CS you could do stuff like summoning rituals to have summons do tasks for you (such as on expeditions) but you could also let them despawn into influences and use those influences for other stuff, i.e. if you picked up a curse you could summon a bunch of Percussigants together with trips to the Orchard of Lights; the Percussigants would decay into Heart influence which you could use together with Heart influences from the Orchard to quickly get a high level influence and deal with the curse. There's nothing like that in BoH, so far as I can tell. Each system exists almost in a vacuum and a lot of stuff can only be used for one thing. You can't use your Skills to help assistants and you can't use your Skills to unlock rooms by yourself. Maybe it's a nitpicking complaint, but it feels like the game has declined mechanically compared to CS.

There's also no time pressure and no threats. At worst you can have your Soul aspects hit by debuffs from certain books, but you have unlimited time to fix them and they'll never lead to a game over. In CS you had to juggle things like Dread and Fascination, and avoid getting hit by the Suppression Bureau, all while making money so you don't starve to death and also reading books and going on expeditions and so on. And this was fun, because it was challenging and engaging. BoH has a nice atmosphere... but the challenge isn't there. You can't run out of money (you're supplied it for free, it's easy to get more, and all you spend it on is assistants; if you aren't hiring assistants then you don't need money, and you'll never run out and starve). The Suppression Bureau isn't after you. You can't succumb to Dread or Fascination. Etc. See the thing is I'm not sure if the grind would be so much of a problem if there was an engaging core gameplay loop... but there isn't. And this just puts the grind to the forefront. It means there's nothing to "mask" the grind.

There's also the issue of UI clutter - BoH has a ton of skills and soul attributes, and while they might be nice from a lore standpoint, I think from a gameplay and UI perspective there are too many. It's just really cluttered and takes a ton of space on the screen if not collapsed, and there's also a lot of time you have to spend hunting for a skill that has the principle you need, because the card UI objects don't contain that information, you have to click on them to see what they do (or memorize them). And sure, there are more skills compared to CS (which just had the one each for health, mind, and passion or whatever they were called) but they feel like a step back in terms of what you can do with them. And that's really a recurring theme I'm sensing here. The game has more content, more of everything, but you can do less with all of it.

I like the idea of the game. When I played CS I always enjoyed hoarding the higher-level books as a collection and using other means to get my Lore up. The idea of a CS type game that's about collecting and cataloguing books is appealing, and BoH seems like it should be right up my alley, but in practice the way they've gone about implementing it just doesn't work well. BoH feels like it should be kind of an enterprise management game, and it isn't. Maybe this is something that will change over time, but I get the sense that "not having failure states" is something they're going to keep in the game, and I think that's a fundamental mistake.

I haven't gotten a victory yet or even reached Numa, but from what I've heard from people who played the game more, the problems outlined above don't go away at any point.

 

[TotalBiscuitsFuckingGhost]

I have completed the game to six of the possible 100 endings. It's okay. The frantic pace of cultist simulator is gone, but to replace it is a slow motion slot machine.

The game at the end is about crafting numerous small buffs that stack up with one large buff to make a threshold. One of the main issues is that if you don't have the skills at the start of the crafting chain to start the recursive loops that generate the free low level resources you're fucked. The other major issue is with the RNG, Guests, Known (thus learnable) languages of said guests, advanced helpers, many of the low level crafting options give random loot, and I could go on...

I like the writing and the setting, but the vast grind spread out before me makes it much less repayable. I can fire up Cultist Sim as Lovecraft Solitaire at any time, but contrastingly the slower pace and longer time investment per run makes me want to play book of hours much less frequently.

It's not bad but I hope AK's next thing will be a faster paced affair.

 

[Ialda]

I especially hope AK let go of the grind as a major gameplay mechanics one day. It's criminal to have such a good writing with a gameplay that boring.

In the meantime, I finally caved and asked for a copy of The Lady Afterward for Christmas. Can't wait to put my hands on it !

 

[Perkel]

What i don't understand is that with Cultist Simulator they produced really neat engine to do everything they want. Literally create more interesting situations with cards etc. maybe cut some grind out and voila you have new interesting game.

Instead they went for huge jpg

 

[what am i doing]

What i don't understand is that with Cultist Simulator they produced really neat engine to do everything they want. Literally create more interesting situations with cards etc. maybe cut some grind out and voila you have new interesting game.

Instead they went for huge jpg

I suspect all they really wanted to do was write lore and make a game about reading lore, and the fact that CS had fun gameplay was mostly accidental. Only explanation that makes sense to me, anyways.