I enjoy seeing the few games that borrow the fairy elements from Shakespeare’s work. It’s a nice change from all of the tragedies and romantic comedies.
I didn’t get stuck anywhere reading through the rules, but I did have to read through twice before I really wrapped my head around everything that is going on. This is a game that would really benefit with a page dedicated to showing the player how it should play out.
The overall mechanics seem like they should work and I like how you’ve spread responsibility out among several different players for everything that happens. I also can’t help but feel that the game would be more fun if only the Major Arcana cards were used. Of course, that would require reworking your entire game so please don’t consider that a criticism; it’s more an observation that drawing named cards is more fun for me.
The glossary was a nice touch. It’s not something you see often in any RPGs. I do think it’s a bit odd you would include a glossary and not a table of contents though.
My only criticism is that I think the game might be a little bit too finicky. This game seems to be intended for one-off play, but it requires a tarot deck, beads, created characters (although not difficult to create) and index cards/scrap paper. That’s a lot of things. To top all that off the rules take a few passes to sink in. I don’t think that’s very conductive for a one-shot style game where players may not have even planned to play the game and have fallen back on it because someone couldn’t make it or as a break from whatever their regular game is. My earlier suggestion of including an example of play could help alleviate that, as could including some of the necessary components in the document to be cut out. My group usually plays indies as a break or as fall back, which is where this is coming from, and I fear that we would likely pass over this game in favour of something lazier.
This is a solid entry with an interesting system and an engaging theme. I think it is a little rough around the edges, but that’s the nature of Game Chef titles.