I played it with my girlfriend, none of us had any prior experience with these games, but still decided to try the hard difficulty. It was definitely hard, but we still figured out everything along the way. We used the hints, but only to be sure with our answers before moving to the next step. It was a pretty lengthy game for us, we finished it in two sessions (1.5+ 2.5 hours). It was really fun, and the discoveries were satisfying to find.