A Blueprint for Frustration

I have a love-hate relationship with this game. By which I mean: I loved about 25% of the experience, and hated the other 75% with the fiery passion of a thousand soft-locked suns. You know the kind of game that traps you in a toxic relationship where you have to keep playing because you might be close to beating it or getting to the good part, but deep down, you know it’s just gaslighting you? Yeah. That. One of the defenses I’ve seen from fans: “If you’ve played this for numerous hours, surely you liked it.” No. Absolutely not. This game taught me the true meaning of waiting–and not in a spiritual way, more in a DMV-on-a-holiday-weekend kind of way.

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This game excels at three things: Wasting hours IRL like that’s its full-time job Letting RNG hijack your hard-earned puzzle solutions Making basic quality-of-life features feel like forbidden magic

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Let’s break it down.

1. A minor note to start: the game could do a better job reassuring the player that failure isn’t permanent

Between the ominous cutscene threatening that the gift will “LAPSE” and the ever-ticking day counter, I spent a good chunk of time convinced a game over was lurking just around the corner. It made me hesitant to experiment or take risks, which feels counter to the intended roguelike loop. In hindsight, you quickly realize it is safe to restart a day—but that clarity comes too late. It’s a small issue, but one that casts a long shadow in the early hours when players are trying to find their footing.

2. Please add item descriptions to the Commissary

It’s a small but frustrating oversight that you can’t see what items do before buying them. When I’m choosing between a shovel, running shoes, or a magnifying glass, I’d really like to know what they actually do—especially in a game where every decision and resource counts. This exists in other shops so it’s strangely inconsistent to be missing from the shop players frequent the most.

3. The Underpass is Pointlessly Frustrating

Trying to rotate paths from below with zero indication of what’s above you? It’s like playing blindfolded and being punished with the game’s slow walking speed for guessing wrong.

4. Non-Persistent Key Items = Crime Against Humanity

Sanctum keys and upgrade discs that vanish at day’s end? Really? We’re already drowning in RNG and punishing mechanics—this is kicking us while we’re down.

5. Real-Time Waiting “Puzzles”

Ah yes, the puzzle where you stare at a clock for 20-45 real minutes, like some kind of time-wasting performance art. Solve it? Too bad, you didn’t know the key vanishes at midnight. Back to square one. Thanks for the crippling rage.

6. Let Me Save My Freaking Safe Codes

Re-entering the same 4-digit codes 50+ times per safe isn’t immersive—it’s psychological warfare.

7. The Reservoir Puzzle: RNG Hell

Drawing the Pool, Boiler Room, and Pump Room in the right sequence is less of a puzzle and more of a divine lottery. It’s like the game is actively trying to punish you for buying it.

8. Realizing you’ve walked past key items for hours is a soul-crushing moment.

Unless you’re blessed with the Metal Detector (which doesn’t alert you to all items), the game gives no indication when a room contains a random, usable item like a trunk, jewel, or coin purse—so it’s painfully easy to miss them, especially in cluttered environments. Four hours into my first playthrough, I learned that the coin purse I’d ignored repeatedly wasn’t just set dressing—it was a game-changing item I’d needed all along. That realization didn’t feel mysterious or rewarding; it felt like the game had been silently laughing at me the entire time. A small UI icon or earned permanent upgrade to highlight these items would massively improve the experience—and save players from the crushing disappointment of realizing their struggles could’ve been avoided.

9. Power Hammer Needs More Power

Grinding out the precise conditions to craft the power hammer, only to have it disappear after one run? Absolutely demoralizing. Just let us keep the dang thing.

10. Let Me Know What’s New, Please

Choosing between three rooms and having no idea which is new content with no access to the menu to check? That’s not helping exploration.

11. Library: A Kafkaesque Nightmare

Want to read a book? First draw the library. Then draw it again to check one out. Then again to read it. Then again to check out another. Then again to read that. I just wanted to learn about a mechanic, not reenact Groundhog Day with a library card. Are there ways to draw the library more often in the late game? Yes, but there’s no reason to punish exploration this way. It feels like more padding for padding’s sake.

12. Worthless Dirt Patches

Work hard to get a shovel, trek across the map, dig… nothing. Not even dirt. Just wasted steps and broken dreams. Give me something—a coin, a gem, a passive-aggressive post-it note—anything. I get this synergizes with the Lab but just have the Lab give credit for DIGGING. Or for digging COINS! Don’t punish players for engaging with the mechanics of the game.

13. Head Meet Wall

Some of these “puzzles” aren’t clever. They’re just endurance tests. You don’t solve them—you survive them, barely. Boiler Room (cough).

14. The Time-Locked Safe is a Hate Crime Against Free Time

Setting the clock, walking at glacial speed, wasting your steps, only to realize you have to reset the time and do it all again because your solution was wrong? No. Just… no. And for the love of all things sacred, put a clock somewhere in the Shelter! I beg you. At least a sundial outside if you’re determined to make me get my steps in. This wasted an hour of my real life.

15. Dart Game: Burn It with Fire

We get it, the devs love math. But if I’ve beaten the dart puzzle once, stop making me redo it like some kind of SAT prep student trapped in a dungeon.

16. Absurd Safe Combinations

The logic leaps required to figure these out would make a Mensa pro cry. And why are they all secretly four digits? Most people assume they’re 6. Just say the length upfront. It’s not a puzzle; it’s gatekeeping.

17. Double Basement Keys? You Monsters

Nothing like barely surviving one RNG-fueled gauntlet only to learn you’ll need to do it again for another door. I weep for my poor, overworked Steam Deck. Make the basement key a permanent unlock.

18. Even when the stars align, the game finds a way to say “not good enough.”

I managed to create the furnace with one room between it and the freezer—a feat of RNG luck that should’ve felt like winning the lottery. And yet, after all that, it still wasn’t enough to melt the ice around the note and key. I waited an absurd amount of time, watching the world’s slowest thermometer inch forward like it was mocking me. If pulling off a near-perfect setup doesn’t work, what’s even the point? This isn’t puzzle solving—it’s wishful thinking.

EDIT: 19. The game is unsatisfying—and it pretends that’s a clever twist.

BP spends 40+ hours hinting at deeper meaning and answers. SPOILER: There are none. Just an endless tease to keep you digging.

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Final Verdict:

There’s a masterpiece buried in here somewhere–but right now, it’s trapped under it’s own design. There’s something special here—an unforgettable setting, compelling ideas, and the kind of layered mystery that keeps you thinking. But the game buries all of that under layers of busywork, RNG, and systems that seem designed more to slow you down than engage you. It’s a game that wants to be profound, but too often settles for punishing. If it ever gets the quality-of-life overhaul it deserves, it might just become a cult classic. Until then, it’s an atmospheric gem wrapped in a frustrating time sink.