It takes a real long time for text to pass offscreen in the intro, something like 20 seconds?--so long I initially thought the game froze. Considering it takes a few seconds for screens to fade in and out on top of that... And the "But Thou Must" in the beginning, on the literal fifth block of dialog, after also lands on it's face; the player has opted in by virtue of playing the game, if they repeatedly click the "No thanks..." during the alleged one chance to opt out, just give 'em a non-standard game over and make them reload. And considering they've had to wait at least 45 seconds to get to that part in the first place... ...and that's completely ignoring the UI flash between the opening text and the introduction.
In short, the pacing in the beginning is atrocious. And that's before the player has even been given a chance to do anything.
haha a little dramatic, but I appreciate the feedback and bringing things to my attention. I'd rather run the intro text slide a little longer to accommodate for different reading speeds, but I do think a skip button would probably be helpful for faster readers.
Pacing couldn't be dialed in to perfection as we sort of ran out of time at the end of the game jam to really balance everything. However, I do plan on tweaking things a little more after the judging period ends to give the best experience possible.
The "No Thanks.." option is really just to show the player that they can go into mouse mode by pressing escape which was intended for the desktop build since it starts the game in mouse captured mode. Having the game reload would make it tedious to get back into the game - for something that was also intended to be a little gag as well.
A little dramatic I'll admit, and I apologize for the tone, but the point was more that those delays strain the attention economy of the average new player, and it's very easy for someone to just get bored before having any real choices. And perhaps a full reload would be excessive, but something other than repeating the dialog would've been nice; the forced binary choice as the first interaction with a delay that long between clicking "Start" and having any interaction just left a sour taste in my mouth, to be honest.
That's fair and I appreciate your perspective.. it was a last minute decision, but I figured I'd rather show a little bit of lore before dropping the player in. The story is important to the game (why would I want to be torturing a demon?), and dropping the player in without any context is not what I want the experience to be - streamlined perhaps? Maybe. But most others have responded well to the game and have enjoyed the lore, so I probably won't make too many changes, but I can see how it can be slower for some.
Also, the forced binary choice also has narrative weight to it - to show how the organization you work for aren't as benevolent as they once were (perhaps even a bit authoritarian at this point). Sorry it left a sour taste in your mouth, but thanks for checking out the title anyways!