49 Keys

Quite nice but also quite short (expect 1.5-3 hours for your first attempt, then roughly 30 minutes for any playthroughs after if you kept good notes on puzzles the first time). I've been playing through a number of gamebooks and interactive fiction lately and this was one was an extremely different tone as there were zero random elements, no combat sections, and puzzles could span entire regions instead of being on a per-room basis. Some of the puzzles feel a bit bull [spoiler] you're telling me that salamander scales are associated with Jupiter solely because I need to make an ointment from them when salamanders themselves are clearly associated to another planet? [/spoiler] but thankfully there's a progressive hint system that can re-orient you without outright spoiling you. The prose is decent but gets a bit verbose at times, the setting is pretty good, my main criticism would be the text speed making replays quite slow.

Tl;dr - short but evocative and very well-written gamebook with occult themes (astrology, medieval bestiaries, alchemy, demonology) and an excellent atmosphere, focused on exploration and puzzle-solving 49 Keys is an adaptation of a very well-written gamebook with a focus on exploration and puzzle-solving (there is no combat, random rolls,, experience, etc.). It is slow-paced, but in my opinion this enhances the atmosphere. The game uses a minimalist style that evokes reading a diary, and creates a great atmosphere of slowly creeping dread. It also superbly conveys how your character, a 16th-century monk with an interest in the occult, views the world through a very different lens than people today do. The music is very evocative, and the art is somewhat sparse, but of high quality. The game is often described as Lovecraftian, and this is true and done exceedingly well as, rather than simply encountering some Lovecraftian baddies, your character will instead experience increasingly uncomfortable revelations and learn some dark truths that will challenge his worldview. The game is also rather short (probably around 4 hours if you take your time to explore and solving the puzzles;…

An ok game. Mostly reading which I didn't mind. I'm glad there were two levels of hints (one kinda helps you out....and if you still can't figure it out, two tells you the exact answer. There were 2 or 3 puzzles I wouldn't have been able to do without the direct answer hint. The few illustrations there are are nice, kinda wish there were more but I get it, this is more like a book and you are supposed to do the imagining. I would rate it 7/10 and was glad I caught it on sale. I wouldn't have bought it otherwise.

in the first run I made some choices that lead to a dull ending. it is very annoying that you have to play from the start to unlock other endings.

A very fun text based occult puzzle/story game. The format of the gameplay was very weird to adjust to at first, but became natural once I got the hang of it. Game only sucked me in the more I played and while the story wasn't world changing in the end, it was still well worth the playthrough and was a great deal of fun. Only one puzzle hung me up where I had to use a hint and I think it could've just used more clarification (duke tower placements). Well worth a shot especially on sale if you like puzzles, text based adventures, or occult knowledge adjacent stuff.

Great story, enjoyed the journey.