Coulrophobia and trypophobia, together at last. - Wilbur

Mayor May Knott is a super-cozy yet hilariously Burton-esque puzzle adventure about a scaredy-cat with prehensile pigtails who restores a ghost town full of monsters. I was hoping for more hands-on town-building, but this was ultimately so charming that I don't even care.

Unable to afford lodging in Glitzberg, May Knott sets about restoring the adjacent ghost town (no, really, the houses are haunted) by gathering materials, crafting, and recruiting new citizens. Our girl is a coward who runs all the way home when spooked, and is easily "jump-scared" by wandering creatures; however, as she solves puzzles and meets new people, she gains "confidence" that lets her interact with more monsters and spend more time in creepy environments.

Controls. Best with a controller.
Playtime. ~17-20 hours.
Settings/Options. Plenty of audio sliders for sensitive ears, plus graphics quality. Save at any time!

✅ Actually Cozy. For a game with so many "jump scares," this is an incredibly cozy and wholesome experience. Most "scares" aren't scary, maybe just a little grotesque, and every monster has a gooey marshmallow center. Some puzzles can only be completed at specific in-game times, but there's no rush or urgency; everything is at your own pace. This, plus simple controls and flexible saves, made it easy to pick up and play for thirty minutes or a few hours, and then set down for a couple days.

✅ Art Style + Character Design. Hats off to art director Janel Heighton and every designer for this unhinged, often so-ugly-it's-cute blend of Beetlejuice, Animal Crossing, and the Toy Story bully's room. The town never quite looks like somewhere I'd choose to live, but everything from the light posts to Mr. Potatohead to May herself is imaginative, unique, gothic, and so cool.

✅ Crafting + Cooking. Not only do you have to repair the town, but you also have to help ghosts fill their consumer needs and consider feeding townsfolk so they don't eat more precious supplies. So, there's a bunch of crafting and cooking recipes, and ample motivation to do both. The processes are simple, but gathering materials requires exploration, nifty little minigames like bowling, or recruiting townies who enjoy the given tasks. Crafted (but not cooked) items can be dismantled, and villagers won't accept things they don't need, so you'll never lose a key object. By the end, I had one of almost every craftable in my inventory just in case.

✅ Humor. Puns and dad jokes abound. From character names to town lore to song lyrics to how you get ghost peppers, nothing was spared from the creators' sense of humor. (Bottles are literally the bottleneck resource, and I wouldn't be surprised if the team planned it that way.) While I rolled my eyes a few times, I laughed more often.

✅ Music. The devs, with Fairfield Audio, wrote and performed 30+ short, goofy songs, and you have no choice but to listen. Thankfully, the songs are as entertaining, varied, and fundamentally strange as everything else. I lost it at the French hip-hop number and… oh, so many others.

✅ Puzzles. There's usually a few quests running at once; most involve some deduction and/or getting your pigtails on resources, but the third act introduces some neat logic puzzles. I actually busted out scrap paper a few times.

🟥 Now What? If you're not sure what to do, a fortune teller provides helpful hints. But, even with those hints, there were multiple points where I'd stalled out or needed to wait, and the only available activities were fishing up trash or cycling through townies' default dialogues. Steam's discussion forums have quite a few folks in similar boats, and there isn't an online guide to consult (though Zuasha777 is putting heroic effort into the fanwiki) or even an in-game marker when townies have new dialogue. Having completed the game, I now know that my issues were due to overlooking hints or trying to solve unsolvable puzzles before moving on, but it was frustrating how little there is to do outside the story.

🟥 Town Building + Decorating. So, you patch up houses, appease their resident ghosts, and then give someone the key. That person moves in, maybe adds a single piece of furniture or décor, and… that's it. You can't do anything to make spaces feel more lived-in, you can't decorate the town, and you have no control over your denizens.

🟥 Town Map. Okay, let's say you give X the key to Dugett House. Now, your menu says X lives in Dugett House. Great. But do you know which house that is? Do you know which part of town it's in? I typically did not. A town map showing house names or where characters are would've shaved a few hours off my playtime.

🟥 The "S Rank" Achievement. Some 30% of players have this, so it's clearly a skill issue, but I'm never gonna get a perfect score in that minigame and I'mma be salty about it.

➡️ Talk to villagers multiple times! Their needs/missions change.
➡️ Consult the fortune teller if you're stuck or need direction.
➡️ If you're soft-locked by a missing item, bribe Jack.
➡️ If you're prompted to "Read" or "Look," click the prompt.
➡️ Yellow room: Hold "LT" to walk. Do not stop.
➡️ Yes, you can hide the clown if it freaks you out.

IndieGems and I would like to thank Ravenous Images for providing a key in exchange for an honest review.

I watched Beetlejuice and Mars Attacks back-to-back at an impressionable age, and walked away with a certain sense of humor and profound appreciation for Weird Things™. Everything I knew about Mayor May Knott before playing suggested that it's Weird Things™, but also that it's more of a free-form cozy game. It's not. It's a linear puzzle-adventure with limited player freedom… because the artists have done more creating than most of us ever could. (Seriously, how do you think of these monsters?)

Also, it's fun. It's funny. It's perfect for winding down on a busy day, or curling up with on a lazy Saturday. It occasionally got on my nerves, but it mostly just made me happy. I laughed, bowled for rolling stones, witnessed the cutest interspecies bromance, and always looked forward to logging back in. I loved being part of this strange world, even if only for a little while.

I do not recommend this if you're looking to decorate, want cute aesthetics, or have low patience for ridiculous jokes. I absolutely do recommend this to busy gamers who grew up with Tim Burton films, to folks who like cozy yet deranged vibes, and fans of Creature Kitchen. I personally don’t really like puzzle adventures, but could not pull myself away from this one.

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