this game is pretty cool and I recommend it especially since I didn't expect to like the game as a completionist yet unlocked multiple heirlooms and still wanna continue. it's not entertaining in the sense you'll fall off your chair and jump through the screen, but it definitely did hook me considering the time I spent.
what I actually did:
spent like an hour and 30 minutes playing as an archer build and unlocked 3 heirlooms within that one life and bought 3 more with the leftover cash I had in the afterlife shop (not called the afterlife shop but I forgot).
pros:
1, the game itself is fun.
2, unique concept.
3, didn't play that far into my second run but from what I can tell, you do indeed make an impact on future lives.
4, lore is pretty interesting. I liked the dialogue with the dwarf guy living in the abandoned mine.
cons:
1, confusing terminology/mechanics.
what exactly is piety? what's a "focus"? what's "unforeseen" on a node? why does my bow say "muscles icon = weak, wind and eyes icon = strong"? what's the dreamcore rainbow with an eye on currency supposed to be?
I think the point of all these names not being standard to make the game seem more unique but some of it doesn't really make any sense especially when it's not fully explained.
there's multiple solutions:
you could replace the names with generic ones.
you could replace names with unique but more intuitive ones.
you could expand the tutorial.
you could add an encyclopedia that explains what every word means. for example, one page explains how items work and describes the "icon + strong/weak thing." another page defines what "piety" is. maybe you wouldn't even have everything unlocked at once and it could unlock as you see stuff and it permanently progresses across characters. you gain your first bit of the dreamcore currency and it unlocks the page for that for example.
2, UI is hard to read.
I think the game is going for an art style where everything uses a small amount of colors which I have no opinion on but one of the things this effects is the UI. when I was playing, I was stuck at the section with fighting the test dummies because I didn't realize I was meant to click on the "proven farmhand" node and had to watch a playthrough by a british guy playing to figure out the issue. basically, the proven farmhand node, for some reason, doesn't have a red outline, and the yellow exclamation mark is green for some reason (again, tutorial issue) which blends in with the icon for the node and looks like a check mark for completed when you're looking at the screen with your eyes more then 1mm off the surface.
more major ideas:
1, make the game mobile compatible. this game seems like it would feel pretty nice to play on mobile. sure, you wouldn't be able to help your character fight npcs while managing unlocks and routines but you could just pause and switch tabs at the bottom of the screen. portrait mode optimally. this would help the game grow too.
2, solve the naming issue from options I previously mentioned.
more minor ideas:
1, add some easter eggs. maybe it'd be cool if you got a really bad 1% xp boost permanent heirloom if you started a new character and immediately retired at young age.
2, maybe make combat more interactive at the start.
not sure about this.
3, make dialogue for npcs change so that each time you talk to someone, that person doesn't say the same thing again.
4, character customization maybe.
how the game works is that each storyline is it's own unique character you can control but I think it'd be nice if you could customize your own character and choose a preset storyline instead (issues such as gender and name could even be solved with stored booleans and tables of data). I doubt many others care but I'd like that because it's more entertaining to make dumb characters yet, it doesn't matter that much.
conclusion:
I spent way too long writing this. good game.
(I know this is hard to read but idk how to improve it)