Didnt really know anything about this game going in other than 1) its published by annapurna and 2) its a game involving puzzles and patterns and ciphers and mysteries, aka a game for me. I did not expect to be as into this game as I was.
This is a really effective puzzle game, once you get going it completely ensnares you in its gameplay loop. There keep being new crumb trails to follow both in the puzzles you solve and the mystery you unravel. You probably need to take some notes while playing this which is a plus in my book.
The central mystery is incredibly intriguing (if pretentious, but i forgive it), and much of my gameplay time was spent reading and re-reading notes i found to try and piece together some tangible narrative, but it was not until the end that (most of) the full picture became clear (which I didnt mind, and honestly at that point i wouldve been happy NOT to get explicit answers from the game)
Obviously the one big flaw that many people have already talked about is the bizarre control scheme, especially when the player has no option to set custom controls. This is a weird choice and causes some frustration and confusion, but i personally didnt find it that detrimental to my enjoyment (plus i really truly got used to it. still a bad design choice, but tolerable)