Similar to cultist sim the opening half of the game is incredible, but once you've learned the game's systems it gets very repetitive and tedious. I think Book of Hours is great if you just want to uncover the game's mechanics and take a victory as early as you can. If you're aiming to uncover every room and read every book then prepare yourself for hours of repetitive crafting, since you'll need a dozen copies of items that take 4+ steps to craft and you have to do it all manually. This makes for hundreds of repetitions. If there were a way to somehow automate crafting after you'd already made an item (Similar to how after reading a book once you don't need to meet its requirements to read it again) the mid and endgame would be much more bearable.

The beginning of the game really is a blast, like you're genuinely piecing together an enormous puzzle one small fraction at a time. The later game feels like trying to play factorio entirely by hand-crafting. The opening is so strong and I love the writing so much that I would recommend the game in spite of its second half being a complete bomb.

Tl;dr learning to craft powerful magical items and memories is amazing. Having to spend two days re-crafting them after each use is madness.

BOOK OF HOURS contains all the esoteria of Cultist Simulator, in a much more accessible package. Fans of Weather Factory's "dark academia" aesthetic who are more inclined towards "cozy games" than brain-burning puzzles will find much more satisfaction here than in their freshman effort. These developers really know how to immerse you in a world, providing just enough bits and pieces to keep you interested while withholding most of the setting's reality from your view. It's truly a happy medium between FromSoft's item description breadcrumbs and Disco Elysium's breathless infodumping that captures all the mystery of the former along with the detail of the latter.

Figuring out how to use and combine elements to progress is maddeningly addictive. In a lot of ways, BOOK OF HOURS is a crafting game bar none; yet one where what you're crafting is "emotions and impressions" rather than pickaxes and furniture. Hush House seems to be the perfect place to crystallize a thought out of beams of light and spiderwebs using a piano or a telescope; it's the kind of historical amalgam that only an old world mansion can be. Just when you think you've unlocked the perfect room to place your brewed hot tea or cocoa in, you learn how to get a cat and the cozy vibes just skyrocket.

If Cultist Simulator was evocative of madness being a kind of magic, BOOK OF HOURS is a meditation on the arcana of introspection. Every item, every person, every thought has one of several elements to it; kind of like a feng shui that is revealed through a mouseover tooltip rather than an augury-driven journey through the I Ching. Combining these elements and guessing what item will give which becomes intuitive after a while, and experimenting with them to progress your Journal makes you feel like a real alchemist. Combine them into ever more distilled and powerful forms to drive goals that the game refuses to set for you.

BOOK OF HOURS makes me wonder whether my own issues are due to some kind of failure to curate the elements of my own thoughts and impressions of the objects that surround me. Do I really need to know what Knife or Moth actually _is_ to know that I have too much of it in my life? Is there a Journal inside me where these elements are slotting in to lead towards some kind of transcendence? Or are they, like the Journal in my first playthrough attempt, just an unfocused scattering that makes it more difficult for me to progress?

It wouldn't be hard to simply review the mechanics of BOOK OF HOURS the way I do for other games. However, it feels like it would take something away from them to do so. BOOK OF HOURS is a game that provides space and atmosphere for you to think through a million mysteries that the developers have lovingly ensconced within it. However it also provides space for you to bring yourself into it, and hopefully take something out of it too. For example, the thought that changing up your blend of tea or coffee and spending an extra moment looking out the window at a different time of day could lead to a whole new way of seeing the world.

接触《司辰之书》短短三个小时内，笔者的心情几次发生陡然的变化：从一无所知的困惑到知道规则的怅然；从无事可做的烦闷到了解真意的惊叹。直到现在着手字句才明白这真是一个不太好评价的作品：无论是难以入门复杂精妙的玩法，还是作品所暗中体现的精神内核，抑或只是那些浮于表面充斥着神秘主义的奇幻文本。都不是笔者能够轻易解析的事物。如果抛开此前关于游戏汉化产生的风波，在我心中游戏的制作者们当真配得上天才二字。那么这本司辰之书中究竟包含了什么？一言概之即是凡人历经艰难成就伟业的史诗
由Weather Factory开发的CRPG《司辰之书》继承了前作《密教模拟器》世界观的种种设定。玩家将扮演一名在海上遭遇风暴惊险到达布兰库格的无名之人。我们的目的就是应某个组织的要求成为小镇旁炼金瓶桥通向的图书馆的管理员。据说那里的书籍饱藏这能够改变这个世界的知识：无形之术的精髓！何为无形？即隐匿俗世表象之下让人无法察觉；何为精髓？即超脱那些偶尔流传出去以供人赏玩的低劣把戏。正因如此这些图书中所记载的禁忌也被掌管着时间与自然规律的司辰们称为伟大之术！试想一个忘记所有的浪子来到此等宝库究竟怀揣着怎样的野心？嘘！噤声书屋才不管这些，它只会矗立在那恭候您的到来

可以说《司辰之书》大概是我库存之中最难上手的游戏：一方面的原因是引导的缺失并且机制过于复杂，而另一方面则是由于游戏玩点慢热导致很多玩家不久便绝而弃之。谁敢想象一个游戏光基础教程便有将近两三个小时？很多独游按这个时间早就速通完了。但正是因为内容的庞大精细才使得其世界观与故事得以完美的表达。作为一款以卡牌合成和文字阅读为卖点的CRPG，《司辰之书》其实不论是对设定中概念虚体的诠释还是现实里客观存在的描述都极为抽象。人们的帮助、天气的回忆、身体的健康等等几乎一切都在玩家手里化作一张张卡牌……这些卡牌则各有各的属性，在秘教的世界观里它们被称为性相，即事物的性质和形相。熟练地使卡牌间产生交互融合它们的性相便是游戏的主要玩法。比如在刚到达图书馆整理房间需要一个协助人的同时还需要他有着穹的性象：这时我们只要通过交谈天气就能将穹性相加入协助人的卡牌。游戏中我们前期的主要工作就是清理书屋解锁房间；后期则是通过读书不断磨练自己的在九大领域中的知识然后最终书写自己的历史
讲点实际的：游戏中玩家获得的的卡牌会放在屏幕下方的四个区域。其中回忆与教诲栏中大多是由近期的天气事件产生的CD卡，一旦过了时间就会消失；魂质栏中的卡牌会隔天刷新，相当于每一天的行动点数；技能和语言中有大多是通过读书等等合成的法术，也是丰盈九大知识领域的道具；杂物中则是一些货币信件和提示信息……

你相信造物主的存在吗？我相信，但它肯定不是世俗的传说故事中那个人性的形态。曾经某位知名科学家对宗教神学里一个比较核心的问题做出了这样的回答表明他否定神的存在。这句话巧就巧在在它首先承认造物者的表象（某个东西创造了一切）然后才质疑宗教经典对于造物者的本质的论述（比如那个人性的上帝）。而这种先抑后扬的反驳方式其实与咱们的《司辰之书》不谋而合。别看它的故事文本中出现大量法术神明带有浓厚的奇幻色彩，但这只是游戏的表象。不瞒您说本作正是一个彻头彻尾以魔法打败魔法的反宗教游戏。首先咱们要知道宗教的一些特性：它们大多喜欢让人信仰着一个超然的有意识地存在；这个存在有着自己的准则好恶来审判人的行为情感；并且这个存在与人有着绝对的界限不可逾越。以这些为理由让信徒遵守教条。但是一旦当你问到它从哪来？为何超然？信仰者往往难以回答，只缘宗教中包含的太多东西是违背客观规律不能被解构的。而在《司辰之书》中世间的一切都是能被解构的，每样事物都有属于它的性相，如果无法合成到你需要的法术说明你对它的本质也就是性象尚未知晓。这就好比自然界中的所有物体基本都是微观粒子构成的，人们无法解释某些现象只能说明我们对它们的认识不足。游戏的万物性相设定其实就是对现实的简陋模拟。其次游戏也抨击了神的存在：主人公从无知之人到通过不断认识事物的本质再到不断学习知识法术最终成就伟业是一个量变到质变的过程。它潜在地表达知识是通过学习的、力量是有来源的、伟业是由人创造的而非宗教中的无端存在

不知从何开始我总希望世间的一切事物按照既定的秩序运行下去不喜欢骤然的变更。我想很多人和我也是一样的，因为不少文娱作品中谈到未知与无常常常就会塑造它的可怕之处。然而骤然变更也一定也有着其存在的理由，虽然明白它的发生从某种程度来说上也是一种必然、一种合理、一种正确，我还是会害怕。但是当时的同龄人似乎不在乎这些，由此我产生了一种异样的优越感并且沉浸于此。不过这也导致我在很长一段时间里习惯于从各种角度看待事物却过分忽略自身的利益从而痛苦万分（同时也是美妙的）。这样的思考偏向一直持续到我在大学学习JAVA的时候。有一天我说不理解对象是什么为什么叫对象，老师回答我：万物都是对象。这让我突然产生一种想法，这世上有没有一种不可反驳的看待事物的理论或者方法，可以将我从生活中很多繁琐的事件中解脱出来。我自身喜欢既定的秩序或不喜欢骤然的变更在这种理论（或方法）下全是统一的，只要理解了它我就无所谓喜欢或不喜欢了。后来在某个时间点上我与宿命论相遇，它主张一切事物都有其发生的必然：早上穿什么鞋子，晚上吃什么饭……在我遇见过的所有理论中她就像是一个冷艳的美女：美在一种随遇而安的恬然自得；冷在一切质疑她的行为又包含在了命运中。得益于它，我免疫了生活中的很多烦心事。然而宿命论的主张虽然简单皮实，但它含藏着的神秘主义又时常让我产生一种荒诞感：它本无法解构，我亦无法解脱。再后来又接触了亚里士多德的四因说、拉普拉斯信条以及各种奇奇怪怪并且和我专业完全不相关的东西，虽然不能转化为生产力，但好歹让我的生活顺心了不少（缓解精神内耗）。同时也让我明白只要肯并且能去解析的事物就没啥好怕的。所以笔者讲了这么多和游戏又有什么关联呢？嘛，可能只是想表达自己对《司辰之书》复杂却有富有逻辑的玩法的偏爱吧