I think I'm done for now because I've explored everything I could find and I keep getting ganked by the bastard whom I haven't been able to beat. A common trend in my day to day life. Also, at one point the game crashed while Dietze was saying "Wait" and I thought it was a mock crash at first, but no, it was real but restarting the game allowed me to progress further.
On that note, the auto-save might be too lenient because it will save when you are already dying or reaching a secret ending game over which is kinda pointless.
As for the writing, I see you've gone the full post-modern route although the self-pity element of the story is too self-aware to come across as schizo. It helps it come across as deliberate.
It's interesting to see how most of the placeholder town has a purposeful generic fantasy vibe but then the hero is Duke Nukem. I also noticed that even the designated punching bag character doesn't like Dietze, but the fact that he uses crab magic did make me wonder if he's secretly turned evil after getting rejected for the position of hero so many times. The fact that he uses a shield as a weapon wasn't lost on me either, the game has a lot of cool details like that.
I also noticed the healer comes equipped with an item that makes her easier to kill.
Finally for the writing, believe it or not, this isn't the first time I kill a kid in a game during a generic early game side quest. In Wasteland the first side quest you are likely to get involves looking for a lost dog only to find it's rabid and you have to put it down. This prompts the kid who gave you the quest to attack you too and you have to fight him with your party of 4 armed federal agents. They were ahead of their time back then, Wasteland came out in 1988, 5 years before Waco.
Moving on, I'm not sure what to say about the gameplay. The start is a little rough but you snowball pretty fast. Guard guy and Dietze feel a little redundant besides their ability to decrease the chance that a more important character gets attacked, but maybe that's the point.
The music is great as always. I wish I had the prerequisite knowledge to actually describe why.
Keep up the good work.
