Gorgeous visuals! I noticed you can toggle the controls with TAB, but once I pick up a gift from the shelf, I’m not sure how to use it. Do I give it to the customers? Use it on the book? Is there a specific key for it? Also, you can write things in the book, but to what end? I know this game has a lot to offer and I don't want to rate it yet until I figure out how to play properly.
Viewing post in We Were Here Only Briefly jam comments
Yes, I actually had my developer friend evaluate the game, and it turned out that not everything is as obvious as we thought. So I’ll explain it both in the description and to you personally.
We fully adopted the jam theme: we have 10 fears that enslave people and get in their way. We run a magical little shop and want to help people get rid of them. We have 10 items, and our task is to figure out how to properly fight each fear and choose the correct item.
Inside the shop there are hints that reveal the correct answers in a notebook. Unfortunately, the 10th customer who was supposed to hint that there’s a key under the carpet broke (didn’t work). That key would open a lock, which would let you hang up posters, and those posters would contain another hint.
In the end we don’t have many slots left, and like in Sudoku, we have to fill in the table using trial-and-error deduction. The game ends when we give 12 correct answers.
Anyway, from a game design point of view, I made a mistake and provided too little additional information.