Rites & Receipts

Came into this game as a fan of Papers, Please and That's Not my Neighbor, so grain of salt of that bias in my review! First of all, it is super cute. I love the vibes - its somehow cozy and haunting and corporate all in one, which is a vibe I don't think that I've seen before. In terms of gameplay, its good, but it feels like its missing something to cement being a come-back-to game. Each day/game segment feels fast paced and fun, but the storyline itself is fairly sparse and takes a long time to develop which can make it feel like there is nothing going on at all. There isn't a sense of time or building up to anything, and I often found myself forgetting the events that did happen because they were far between and not super memorable. There is very little in terms of advancement that makes the payment system feel like anything we need to keep track of. Not saying I am a fan of microtransactions in games, but it is nice when there are cosmetics for your space, advancements you can unlock for your station, even something like being able to pay for a nicer apartment even if you ever see it - something to work towards beyond just two cosmetic hands and a seemingly endless goal wi…

It feels like an empty shell of a game and it's a disappointing waste of potential. I loved the idea of a witchy fantasy "Papers Please". The game starts out incredibly grindy and tested my patience vigorously. The story didn't progess AT ALL during the first 30 minutes of the game at least. No gameplay progress either, just repeating the same 10 rituals over and over which you can memorize easily. I loved the premise though so I pushed through to give it a chance - I thought there HAD to be something coming up story wise here. After all Papers Please could get grindy at times as well. Well, the one ending I managed to achieve (after 2h of gameplay mind you) was underwhelming to say the least. It was basically a guy writing me a letter, you telling him yes or no through a ritual like 3 times over and then suddenly the game's over. No explanation what happened behind the scenes or what your decisions' concequences are. The gameplay doesn't improve either, the rituals stay the same, you just have to set an additional stamp on some of them and they add fraudulent requests to mess your day up a bit. The difficulty gets amped up by corporate setting you a goal of 20 rituals a day at …

rip dev laptop :(

For a game that's three dollars, it's a pretty fun game to play with when you're bored. The aesthetic of the game is very academia-coded with some gothic twists about making rites. I think overall that maybe there needs to some more pressure on the seal system (maybe more upgrades or items) because you can easily rank up seal in the game quickly and the rent and mistakes given don't really give you pressure to make money or meet quota in my opinion. Another thing I think should probably be improved on is the fraud system, which I feel could be on my part but I feel like it almost impossible to even see them. I always got them wrong no matter how much I looked at it but again, it could be on my part. Overall, I think it's a pretty good game to play, especially for the price, so I'll definitely play some more another time.

I played for 7 in-game days and up to that point found it pretty boring. It has nice visuals and a cool concept idea but gameplay barely changes in this time. I assume it's so the player can get used to the base mechanics before introducing something like the stamps, but I found this portion way too long and the base mechanics too shallow, after the first day I had a solid memory of what most things were and by day 3 I was a stamp machine, making over 50 stamps each day. The blurry drawings were kinda interesting but they were there on like one or two spells per day and all they did was make the process take some 3 seconds longer. The subway parts were nice but having like 3 in a row with an interaction and then 2 without one feels like the game ran out of content. I wish it had more to it, maybe you have to do some preparation with the ingredients like grinding salt or cleaning bones so depending on the spell the process is actually different, not only what option you pick but what you have to do. I also felt like only 4 options for both sides was very little, made it super easy to memorize. It mentions "vague descriptions" at the start but they really do not come into play, mayb…

For a $3 game, it's pretty fun. The magic system is neat and while the story takes a second to get started, it's still fun and engaging. However, the crow's delivery takes so much of the precious time to fill the quota, and the seals barely have any worth. It's too easy to amass a lot of seals so that rent and supplies is barely a concern after the first couple days. It's fun and worth the money, just don't expect a high-pressure game.