Thank you! : D Trust me, it was VERY obvious in the 2019 prototype! ; ( ;
The new areas in the demo were nice. I imagine the Elder sounds Scottish.
I did notice one problem. At the Ruins I explored the shack, the river, and the west ruins. I then got "In the north, you see a path leading around the palisade" then "The path leading west from here..." but then "In the north..." was unexpectedly repeated again. Here's a screenshot:
Relax! Demos and playtesting are (at least partly) for catching bugs, the system is working perfectly :)
The demo is pretty good. Like you said, you've focused on polishing existing content rather than adding new content, so the changes are a bit subtle compared to the previous demo. I like the changes you made to the health/armor/conversation systems.
The world still feels alive, like there are other things going on around you and you're just a minor participant, there are mysteries to solve, and maybe there are things you won't even see in a single playthrough because of the different paths you can choose.
I have no idea what the Elder's real name is (probably not in the demo I guess), and I don't have enough money to buy Dajit's monster advice (again probably not enough money in the demo), so there's exciting things to look forward to in the future. I wonder what happens if I choose all the agressive conversation, or if I choose to joke around with the innkeeper despite being told not to. I want to play a few different games choosing all the different options. I expect if I choose to fight the the goblins then I might die. I'm actually scared to discover what's hiding in the ruined town, the writing is so good.
I guess from here, you have that mid-development part of adding new content. People often say this is the slow boring part of game development :P but also it adds the bulk of content which players enjoy.
Thank you for the review. <3 I think this is the kind of impression I aim for!
I'm actually not afraid of adding New content, it's figuring out which one is Worth Adding that scares me. : P There's a plenty of things already in the demo areas that can't be reached yet as they are unlocked in other places. Ideally, the PC will return to various settlements many times, revealing more layers of the things to do as well as reactions to PC's progress.
However, I grow harsher when it comes to judging the quests structure. Some of the older in-game tasks involve fetching for items, and I start to see them as a bit lazy. But that's a problem for The Future Me - for now, I'm all about adding NPCs to new areas.
I don't think there is anything wrong with fetch quests. You could reduce almost every adventure game puzzle down to a "fetch quest" if you wanted. It's the story around them which matters.
Asterion is a great example. I'm presumably going to find him dead at some point, then return to the starting location and get his items. The "fetch quest" isn't even an item, it's a piece of information which I'll "pick up" automatically.
However, the quest doesn't just send me over the other side of the map and back again with nothing in between. There's a whole storyline and mystery about it, the relationship between Asterion and other NPCs to explore, it's actually very exciting.
You actually do have a single-item fetch quest in the berries for the innkeeper, but if you talk to the guards then you'll learn this is a basic test to make sure you're trustworthy. The quest isn't about fetching berries, it's about proving that you're reliable and humble to another NPC. That's a lot of extra stuff added to a simple basket of fruit!
I trust you'll add a compelling story around most long puzzles. You seem very good at writing these intertwining storylines that make solving puzzles very rewarding to the reader.
I appreciate your trust. ^^ I think what killed my enthusiasm for fetch quests is how pointless they often seem. In one game I was asked (multiple times) to bring animal skins and other resources gathered from respawning enemies. It usually involved almost no storytelling ("we lack meat, we won't explain why we can't get it ourselves, go get it, here's your coin"), and completing these quests had pretty much no impact on the story or the state of the world. It felt like a recycled structure, in which voice acting most likely costed more than the rest of copy-pasted code with hardly any innovations. And having a flexible motivation such as "we need help, do a chore for us" was also removing many possibilities.
I think about my experience with games such as this one a lot.
In my mind, Asterion is less of an object to fetch and more of a MacGuffin with a personality, kind of like R2-D2 from the original Star Wars movie, but he is present in stories and the results of his actions even before PC finds him. : )