Image: Hilltop Studio & Digital Bandidos

I do love a good time-loop mystery, and from what I've played so far of Curse of Resthaven (thanks to developers Hilltop Studios for the key), this one's rather special. An age-of-sail management RPG about being the ill-prepared new governor of a failing imperial island trading colony that is also cursed to be destroyed in a tsunami of magical chaos in just six days. So, not the best first week of job experience.

For that first week, things almost seem doable, though. Each day, you've got a limited number of actions to explore the beautifully hand-painted town, claiming resources from the town's stores, selling them to visiting traders, and re-investing to upgrade your facilities. You're also tasked with exploring the (very cursed) wildlands, hiring mercenaries to take on expeditions and tackle unusual situations, bringing back treasure and carving out new farmlands to exploit.

But what really matters is knowledge. You're here to search for your missing niece, who stopped sending her cheerfully ominous letters six months ago. Also, the town is just lousy with missing citizens. There's also some kind of mysterious mutating plague afflicting the people outside the walls, a local mad scientist hungry for research subjects to seek out a cure, and plenty more problems. By the time my first week ended, I'd barely had a chance to meet the townsfolk. And then I died when EVERYTHING happened all at once.

But this is a time-loop game. The spirit of the island - an old goddess - wants me to unravel what went wrong, because she wants to know why too. Having friends in high places does mean I get to pick some small permanent rewards each loop to give me a little foot up. But the most important thing is that the knowledge remains in your protagonist's head, and I can use that to immediately start pulling at threads faster and more efficiently. It's very satisfying, as a good time-loop should be.

Problems that previously required leg-work, I can now assign my adjutant to clean up. Characters that would only speak to me if I knew of a certain person or event or password can be interacted with early. Some events might be a little unpredictable (there's a little bit it roguelite spirit here, but this is mostly a narrative-driven, well-structured mystery), but I immediately feel empowered, even though I know that things are going to trip me up again before long.

I'd describe Resthaven's world as 'eldritch', but not particularly Lovecraftian. Old gods and ancient magic abounds, but this is a relatively cosmopolitan and diverse setting, and the island has folks of all shapes, sizes, creeds and colors. The kind of place that would have Lovecraft turning in his grave, really. But there's no shortage of horrors lurking here, with the grimmest of stuff sparingly illustrated in monochrome, starkly contrasting against the otherwise colorful world.

From the loop and a half that I've played so far, my only complaint with Curse of Resthaven is that the voice-acting - while competent - does sound like a slightly amateur recording situation, with varying microphone qualities and different reverb in the background. Still perfectly good and clear, but betraying the game's clearly smaller budget. And yet, it's almost fully voice-acted with a large cast of characters, so consider this praise through faint damnation.

If I can escape the terrible gravity of the dozen other games calling for my attention this week, I'll be digging deeper into this one for sure, especially considering the glowing reviews it has received so far. Curse of Resthaven is out now for £17.75/$20, with a 10% launch discount, plus a lengthy demo that'll give you a feel for the mysteries to come. The game will also be in several discount bundles, but those aren't up yet on the store, so check back later if they're not live yet.