I love this use of the Carta system! I feel like it underscores the complicated and mysterious nature of the recipe book that the player has to venture through it, decoding one ingredient at a time.

The ingredient descriptions are also great, and help so much to set a tone. Reading through them, I could already imagine what some of my journal entries could be like, and how those little bits of extra flavor text would help me both in theorizing about the ingredient's purpose, and in reminiscing about times past. 

I love the Carta system and have used it in a few unique ways, but NEVER considered using it to peruse a complex, layered recipe book! The concept here is lovely, but the prompts are ✨AMAZING✨. Which should come as no surprise; prompts have always been your specialty. But reading them makes me feel so much more like I'm actually reading the book and remembering Grandma.

I literally have one memory of one grandma lol. She gave me her favorite stuffed animal, a giraffe. Back then it was like "yay" (I was like... 4 or 5 maybe?) but in hindsight it was so sweet. She died when I was very young, and my other grandma died before I ever knew her.

Geez, no wonder I focus on average life expectancy so much... I lost ALL of my grandparents before I was 18. 😅

But yeah, this is beautiful, and I love it. 🧡 

- ✨Beth

This is a quite enjoyable Carta-style game! I really adore all the creativity and details you put in the tables for the ingredients ("Green Peas. They’re like little gemstones, if you want be poetic.") I also really love the peeks into Grandma's backstory! It gave the game such a precious, fun depth.

I really need to employ the Carta system into a future game as the amount of creativity is endless! I loved how it was used to discover the connections between recipes and the slow discovery of your grandmother’s entries!

I would recommend a lighter background for printing purposes only as the blue causes more ink to be used. I had no other complaints as this was a joy to play!

This is written so charming and homey, reading it felt like a warm hug. I love the little nostalgic notes about grandma tucked within the prompts like “Grandma made friends with a faerie in a French vineyard once” or “Grandma had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the spice tolerance of her various relatives.”. It really gives a lovely little dash of character building, making the legendary recipe book you’re exploring come to life.

I couldn’t help but think of my own grandmas that have passed on and a bit of what it must be like trying to figure something out of theirs without them.

I also quite enjoy that you added a page that shows how you use a lot of the ingredients listed. This is delightful.

~Angel

I like this game very much! I think it’s pretty much immersive. The little details in the ingredients adds to knowing who grandma actually was (she seems very alive to me as a character 💕💕) The witch ingredients are very interesting and (as the other tables) they have that nice spot between being vague enough and with a certain inclination we can take to inspire ourselves. I think the tables are the strong point of the game for me (very lovely!), and I like how you interpreted the movement between cards as the player decoding the layout of the book, it pairs well. Nice game, good work ✨✨

This was such a sweet and lovely little game.  It reminded me so much of my grandma in the best way (memories of trying to get her Filipino recipes, and her being either super secretive and evasive or just purely mysterious about them lol). I really loved the experience playing where, as I revealed more ingredients for my recipe, I got more of a sense who my Grandma was in the game. I ended up with this really legit amazing sounding stew. A celestially radiant salmon dish. Some witchy sort of pad thai with some Persian flare. And then what I think is a magical ward for my home. :D

I really loved how cozy things felt. After a long and difficult day, this felt so nice to just sit down with for about a half-hour and explore. Just relax and see which of Grandma's recipes I might uncover <3 Great job on the ingredient list and the descriptions too! I was nervous I might not be able to make good recipes, but I never had that problem lol
Thanks for submitting this!

A very charming idea! I love the combination of ordinary ingredients with strange magical ones.
I also very much appreciated the cozy descriptions you added for each ingredient.

I don't have much experience with journaling games, but you've constructed a really interesting interaction between generations that took me back to flipping through my mother's recipe books as a child, and you paint a very vivid picture of the character you're interacting with through simple ingredient descriptions. I enjoyed it a lot.