The Demo looks very promising. What I enjoyed about the experience was that the characters have very different personalities and they are all designed in their very own special ways and they all are drastically different from each other. Of course, some of these characters complement each other; this works well at creating a flow in the dialog and with so many different characters, there's tons of different opportunities each conversation and debate can take. This cohesive design in characters makes me really optimistic to what is to come from this game.
Now on to the critic -
I feel like without voices, the debates seem very stale, especially when the dialog stays on screen for a bit longer than necessary. I know it is not the easiest thing to get voice actors for each character but even some different tones in noises they make can give these characters more life. You can look at animal crossing as an example, the characters don't have to say actual,understandable, words to be understood; the characters just speak in this gibberish language, but they do so in different tones and that gives you a sense in the characters and gives you more to associate with them.
Another thing that doesn't really bother me but I just want to question is why the Focus meter takes a long time to run out even on mean? It just doesn't seem too hard to hold down the space bar for about 8 seconds and progress pretty far with little to no risks. It would be more challenging if the focus meter would run out a lot quicker so you'd have to strategically conserve your use of the ability. I'd imagine this meter would take even longer to run out after having access to perks you could unlock in the full game.
Other than that, I feel like the game has a lot of potential and I cannot wait for the full release.
Thank you for your time.
P.S: I really like what you did with the Hangman's Gambit and how the game is pretty self aware of the original series and it's flaws. Please do more fun and creative stuff like this.
P.S.S: I was just brought to my attention that the game is casting for voice actors so I am even MORE excited to see what the game turns out to be in the full release. GOOD LUCK!