What a stunning entry!
This game fully delivers on its premise: In a colorful fantasy city, a diverse cast of firefighters combat a fire in a wizard’s tower.
Let’s start with the layout of the 56(!) pages and artwork: I liked the character artworks, the map, and the little burns on the paper texture edges. I am not a super big fan of a two column layout for on-screen reading, but I can see how this will work very well in print.
This submission also does a lot of worldbuilding. While it is clearly a capsule game (and states this clearly in the intro), reading about the city and looking at the map, I felt there is a vast additional potential of the setting. I was curious to learn more and I liked I could learn some more by reading the characters.
Ruleswise, the game is clearly in the footsteps of EtR, but many small changes reinforce the firefighter-theme.
The story itself is not as linear as one might guess at first glance (it’s a tower after all). The firefighters often have two ways to continue, leading to some replayability.
I can understand why the characters share so many mechanics and equipment (they are all fire fighters after all). However, I felt the overlap in “generics” is prone to hide the differences between the characters. I would have to play the game to really understand this point though. I love the “Flashbackdrafts” and Appendix A.