I'm a bit baffled by how well-reviewed this game is. The first act is great, everything about it works. The atmosphere is cool, creating the cards after you die is a great way to keep stay engaged when it's clear you won't win a run, and the puzzle room stuff works to break things up. When I got to the end of that act and it was clear everything would change I was excited to see what came next.

Then after that it's just... not very good at all. I would say act 2 is straight up bad. The mechanical changes are complicated without being very exciting and the puzzles just seem designed to pad the length. Act 3 is better, but it's still just a worse version of act 1.

During all this it feels like it's trying to say something about game design or the act of making games. I kept expecting some reveal that would make some thesis clear, but that just never comes. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't really think that's the case. It just feels like the work of someone who thinks making something "meta" makes it interesting.

All of this is disappointing after such a strong start. I'm seeing a playtime of 11.5 hours and I think at least half of that was spent just waiting for it to get good again. It feels like there's probably a short 1-2 sitting length game in here that's really fun.