I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed - if only because I had such high expectations for this game. Coming from Off-Peak I knew I loved the Cosmo D vibe, and this game delivers on that... But the gameplay loop doesn't make me want to play it more than the few runs I have.

You walk around and do skill checks in conversations with people, Yahtzee-ing your skill dice to get better results and using the money you win from the checks to upgrade your dice. Problem is, the actual act of doing the skill checks takes up so much of your time in this game and they are truly not interesting at all.

Your choice of which skills to upgrade could be one potential source of decision-making , but the way upgrades are priced, you're really incentivized to go for a generic build every time. Maybe the interesting decisions are supposed to be from the order in which you do things? But even then, I don't find it that fun to walk back and forth and see where I have a chance at a better than average skill check.

Really, this game makes me want to play Cosmo D's adventure titles - I appreciate the attempt at a sort of strategic CRPG inspired roguelike, but the mechanics needed more compelling decision points to be worth replaying more.

first run: i didn't like it, the dice rolls added wayyy too much uncertainty to the run, and i wanted it to be a more puzzle-y adventure thing than a micro rpg thing

second run: kept going cause the run was short enough, this time did 4am and iron pizza mode together and beelined the same ending i got before because it was easy enough

third run: noticed the laid-back checkbox! all rolls easier?! yes please! suddenly, the game opened up! through laid-back mode and the usage of liberal save states to experiment and find some other endings, before looking up a guide for the last few, i found the game a loooot more fun, and so the third run became all subsequent simultaneously basically

i still don't like the dice battle mechanic - i think it works against the experimental nature of the game to also tie those experiments to heavy rng, BUT! because laid-back mode existed, it gave me a lot more leeway than i originally expected, so i was able to get past that hurdle

it's a bizarre, surreal experience, and i do like it overall, but i dunno if i really have much to say about the actual writing and presentation beyond "it's a flavor of weird that you'll either like or hate"

i would maybe like it more if it weren't so ugly to look at, but i know that's a very deliberate choice, so whatever, i guess