The text vs link problem actually just got solved today! Was already a minor annoyance on a list of fixes to make. The ally text is cyan while links are blue, but in the intro when Paige is ranting about magical kingdoms- the links are inside of her text which caused them to adopt her text color, it is fixed now, they are all the standard link coloration.
For pathfinding- it is definitely a selective problem, people who do not have strong visualization when imagining things have issues while others do it effortlessly. Even some people who can imagine things easily normally will struggle if their mind has issues switching tasks between that read and 'consume' imaginative ability and the action/input aspect of it. Major areas do have expandable text describing their contents like the backyard and 'belly' but not individual sub-areas.
The story keeps track of both what room you are in and also where you are within that space, giving you text appropriate to where in the room you are- so the major apex areas are just one passage with many, many scenarios for you exiting/entering from every possible entry point.
For characters, there IS descriptions of them when you actually interact with them and it becomes relevant. All fight and seduction encounters or just major encounters with characters have descriptions of them during the fact- far more detailed than what Paige gives you in the beginning. There are instances where you can contact Paige to ask about items or people of interest throughout the story.
Like Dane for example- his description when you see him in the side yard is already more information than Paige is going to be able to give you in the first place. He is just a mercenary- she doesn't know who he is, who he is wouldn't have become public news at any point for her to know anything. Almost every person in the entire game is named at some point and given at least a glancing description. But it is only detailed when it becomes relevant to you. Or your eavesdropping and deliberately trying to snoop, lol.
It was one thing I tried to stuff into the story as much as possible; through random encounters and eavesdropping you can see glimpses of other lives, stories, or personalities behind various people including several of Terastios' plain servants. I didn't want anyone to seem like some blank-slate NPC standing around as 'roadblock#4'. Each time you play, you see and learn a little bit more about everyone.
The story has a LOT in it, but it is not long, like, at all. It is a lot to absorb at -once- but its designed to be replayed, so, you're presumably being exposed to much of it, repeatedly. Like, it seems long now because you don't know where to go. If you actually knew what routes to take, you could get to the end of the story in like, 5 minutes and blow through all the content.
If it makes you feel any better- that maze is batshit insane. Like the story, it is also very short but to make up for it, its also extremely deceptive and even in my playtesting I generally just avoided it entirely. The maze is not necessary to beat the story- you can technically just avoid it entirely. If you want to run it though there are two ways to make it easier- first, there is an area where you are given the option to rest and potentially talk to Paige. Using the rest area resets the timer on the maze. And can be used as many times as you want. The other is an answer most don't want to hear but DEFINITELY helps, a lot. Run the OTHER maze. There is a hedgemaze at the front of the building- if you complete it you will know how to run the one upstairs. The hedgemaze has a unique design to it though so running it is different, but also most importantly- there is no time limit technically. You can take all the time in the world to run that maze without consequence.
And if you want help visualizing the layout of the mansion... without spoiling too much- the study is somewhere on the second floor. It contains things like, maps, images.... the illustrated blueprints for the entire mansion...
Thanks for the detailed response! ^^
The navigation thing might be a skill issue, fair enough, though to be honest I haven't had that much trouble navigating other text-based games, including old school enter-a-word-into-the-box-to-do-a-thing ones so I'm not sure if my problem here was really an imagination issue. Unfortunately I haven't really been able to try this one again since the previous comment, so maybe there's still some hope that if I get back into it while I'm a little more awake that it'll be easier.
All very good things to know about the maze and the study and such though - I will definitely try using those to suck a little less.
Regarding the characters, yeah there are descriptions after an interaction starts, but my issue is more on the initial encounter. If the player hasn't encountered e.g., Merric before, it would be more helpful to have the text read something like "a battle-scarred goatman mercenary is patrolling the hallway" than "Merric is patrolling the hallway" as the former both represents what Summer is seeing and is more useful for determining the next action.
Similarly, for the VIP guests, when choosing who to eavesdrop on, it would be helpful to have a reminder of which one is which before I make that decision since time is limited. Even something like "listen to John, the caecilian businessman*" (*I can't remember what John's actual job was, I'm sorry, it's been a while TT) would go along way compared to just "listen to John", y'know?
Anyway, hope to have more once I get back around to it, but didn't want to leave you hanging.
Ah, well expanding their titles in the many eavesdropping scenes should be easy enough, I can put that in on the next update. Although it wouldn't make sense for at least a quarter of them, since they are not guests of honor. A good chunk of the eavesdropping scenes are people you only know exist thanks to the eavesdropping scene. Like two of the scenes you can potentially get when you approach the front of the house for the first time- Lady LaBlanc and Aqualia Granidine. The chance encounter you see there is the only time either of them appear in the story, if you don't see them there, you will not know they even exist. Unless you've beaten the story twice and unlocked Terastios' origin story, then you'd at least know Aqualia exists, lol.
The text for encountering people like that was similar to what you wrote originally, but was later changed. If i would set up that...hmm, it would take quite some doing, I would basically need to create some sort of recognition system that tracks who you have already seen. Because too familiar talk about them would be weird if you haven't encountered them, and too unfamiliar like this would be really weird if you have already encountered them. The problem is that the story is free-roam, I have no control over when you see them or even if you see them at all in the first place. So I would switch all the encounters for every merc to a much less familiar, fuller statement, but then rig a variable to each mention of their name in the story so once it has been said once, it swaps the text out with a more neutral version like I have now.
But that is quite an undertaking... their names are mentioned a lot, and because I have no control over where you encounter them... EVERY mention of their name would need to have this swap-out trigger. Even the 192 ending sequences for the event you never encountered them at all, and they show up in the ending sequence. So, I doubt I could have that in the next update, that is like, an entire update onto itself, like, two weeks worth of work at least, so that would be much further down the line.
The last update (1.2) should make things a bit easier for you- there is a retry mechanic now that the Bad Ending drops you off at, giving you the option to restart at the front of the mansion with your current or a different build- completely bypassing the library, prep, and intro sequences.
Yeah, totally get that. In terms of the coding itself, adding the pre-meeting descriptions is easy enough. Basically just <if metX> A [species] [role] is [action] <else> [name] the [role] is [action], but the issue is sheer volume. To that end, if it's too much I don't think you need to go through and do all that for this game, you can just take that more as advice for next time. It's not really game-breaking or anything and I certainly don't want you to do all that just because one guy said something "^^.