Book of Hours Preview/Demo Impressions: The Thinnest, Tastiest Vertical Slice

Credit: Title Art from Book of Hours

Book of Hours
Platform: PC
Developer: Weather Factory
Publisher: Weather Factory
Release Date: June 2023

Book of Hours, the latest upcoming game from bizarre art collective/writing duo/indie game studio Weather Factory, has tantalized fans with brief glimpses over the past few years, finally dropping a small playable demo during Steam NextFest. The game, which promises to be something like an “occult librarian simulator” with a similar interface and art style to previous indie smash Cultist Simulator, casts you as the Librarian of a mysterious clifftop library called Hush House, a punishment for some nebulous crime. In your capacity as Librarian, you catalog books, read forbidden knowledge, make nice with the townsfolk, and uncover secret Wisdoms that might lead you down dangerous pathways or cost you your sanity while giving you new skills.

The demo begins with you washing up on the shores of Brancrug Isle, home to the clifftop library of Hush House and the town of Brancrug Village. The Village is a town of suspicious people, requiring you to gain an introduction from an old friend before you continue your journey towards the Library. From there, you unlock a few locations— the local post office where you can send and receive letters, the local pub where you can hire laborers, and one of three places in town where you can gain favors and help: the local blacksmith, the rectory where the Vicar lives, and the curious duplex where the local Midwife and the Undertaker live together. Your goal (as much as there is one in the demo) is to rescue yourself from the beaches of Brancrug, find your way up through the Village, and eventually make your way into Hush House itself, where the demo ends.

The Wisdom Map from Book of Hours. Credit: The Gamer’s Lounge/Screenshot

There’s a lot to love here. The expressionistic visual style, rendering everything out of blocks of color in a way that feels one part painting and one part collage. The return of Weather Factory’s unique adventure-game system, one that sees you collecting cards and slotting them into various actions around the map. Even the newer elements of the work, which include a scrollable map and the ability to arrange objects inside the individual rooms of your library. It’s very impressive, and the way the game handles larger map elements with progress bars beneath each location is a novel way to deal with the constantly advancing clock, letting the player see what’s going on as they zoom in and out of the map.

Credit: The Gamer’s Lounge/Screenshot

The problem is that the demo is very short, comprising barely the beginning of the game (in fact, the demo ends when you get to Hush House, where the meat of the game supposedly takes place). It makes it difficult to get too many impressions from it. Book of Hours hints a lot at interlocking systems, from the simple (telling fortunes at the local pub for money) to the complicated (the upgrade tree is a dizzying web that dwarfs Cultist Simulator’s Mansus screen, with cryptic hints as to what you need to upgrade). Even getting off the opening beach requires careful and slow consideration of your options. What you get is fantastic and finely tuned, though, in spite of being abrupt.

Maybe that was the idea? Hint at something grand, show what you have for now in a sort of playable alpha format, and get people on board for the rest? If so, it’s certainly intriguing. Given the degree of control in the demo, one can only hope that the full game is as promising and broad as the demo suggests, the systems as deep as Weather Factory promises.

Regardless, we won’t have long to wait, as Book of Hours arrives in full resplendence this June for PC. If this is the thin vertical slice we’re getting so far, I for one can’t wait to dive in.

"Perhaps It Is Crueler To Let You Live" - Hands-On With Conan Exiles

The following article may contain mature images inappropriate for those under the age of seventeen

It's been almost a week since FunCom released their fantasy sandbox survival sim, Conan Exiles. And the prognosis is...better than initial launch. The game looks great, and the loop of scavenging and survival is well worth it, sure. It's also the only game with (and this is obligatory since it's been the only news coming out about this game other than the lag info,) an endowment slider so you can choose the size of your character's breasts, or, if you are so inclined, pendulous lower extremities. But while the game has a lot of interesting systems and some absolutely gorgeous graphics, the extreme lack of balance, lag and rubberbanding issues, and just downright uncooperative AI mean that this game will have a lot of polish to deliver before its final release.

Conan Exiles casts you into the ancient and brutal world of Hyborea as an Exile, one who has committed terrible crimes (procedurally generated for each new character) and been thrown out into the forgotten wastelands, fastened to a cross to die. The player is then saved by Conan, who leaves them naked and unarmed on foot in the middle of vast ruins hewn from jet-black stone, to gather sticks, rocks, and plant matter until they have enough resources to get themselves clothing and tools. They then must build and upgrade their equipment, gain experience, and eventually rise to assert their dominance over the savage world, provided a crocodile doesn't bite them in half, forcing them to find their body all over again.

Yes, friends, it turns out that not being Conan or one of his allies in a Conan story isn't all that much fun. A lot of the early game is spent running from literally everything, because everything will kill you. Arguably the least dangerous two enemies are the giant bat you meet in a scripted event, and the "imps," nude guys who look like a hunchbacked Toxic Avenger and can't take you out unless in a pack. Even the under-equipped AI-controlled "exiles" who run around on the PVE and single-player instances of the game can take you out. The game is punishing, make no mistake. 

But this highlights one of the major issues with the game. While brutality is all well and good, and is in fact a major feature of the Conan world, the sheer size of the difficulty cliff makes it annoying to play. Enemies will chase you across the map, and even after breaking line of sight. Also, none of them seem the slightest bit interested in anything but you, which means you can be standing on a rock trying to catch your breath and get around things, and suddenly be surrounded by enemies who are only interested in killing you. Moments after leaving the starting desert in any direction, you are swarmed by some fresh horror, which immediately kills you and drops you in the starting desert again.

This necessitates either finding your dead body to loot it in a very dangerous area, or starting all over again from scratch. It's frustrating, but much appreciated over the system where you would lose all your items, weapons, clothing, and any structures as well as everything else, which has since been patched out. However, with the hyper-aggressive enemy AI, this is still a dangerous proposition, and one difficult to enact. You will end up making a lot of stone pickaxes and stone axes to get through the early part of the game, and sometimes it isn't worth it.

Aiding and abetting the enemy AI is a system that doesn't register hits when you attack and some serious lag and rubberbanding issues, leading to such moments as an ibex who will stand still while you hit it, never once registering that it's hurt, only to teleport a mile away and start running like crazy. Enemies will drop you in four hits, regardless of armor or how much damage you deal to them with the same weapon they're using. Sometimes, I even saw people walk across water or through rivers. The lag gets even worse on the online servers, which, I should caution to remind everyone, are the entire point of the game. That you get your open ended Hyborian adventures in a world with real players and real player-created content. Which is nigh-impossible to play.

And all of this really ticks me off, because the game is great. It feels really satisfying when you win a combat and then butcher your kill for parts. It has bizarre moments, like harvesting human adversaries for food and hides, meaning you can be wearing human-crocodile hybrid pants. It's satisfying to gather and make things. It's even cool figuring out the past of the Wastes from the sinister glowing tablets hidden throughout the world, or trying to go to the distant spires you can see from locations. It's a fun game, cloaked in the worst nightmare of hardcore survival game nonsense. It's an awesome concept hampered by extreme performance issues. 

Wait until this one comes out of early access. FunCom is working tirelessly to fix what's broken, and when it finally comes out of early access, the result should hopefully be an intriguing adventure in the brutal world of ancient Hyboria. Until that time, I suggest watching the patch notes intently until the game it is now becomes the game it could be. 

Conan: Exiles is currently in early access. The reviewer received a complimentary copy for this hands-on look