That was a really satisfying end to the chain!
- I loved the dialogue between party members! PKHW's fake open-mindedness and forced positivity, Castern's hater dismissiveness, and the fish's lone-wolf killer attitude made some dynamic and very funny lines when they collided together. And even though it was foreshadowed, I was still shocked when the consequences arrived!
- The secret-hunting was a little scary with so many potential spots to try, so much text in the books that may or may not be a hint and no option to go look up a FAQ when I got stuck. But in the end, it was just well-explained and limited-scope enough I was always able to spot the next secret within 15 minutes or so. I took photos of my monitor in lieu of notes and I ended up with over 100 photos in my camera roll.
- With all those bombastic atma spell names and so few battles, I was convinced at first that the battle system was just a satire, and I would only need to find all the secrets to win. I must've forgotten this is a sraëka game...
I love your writing style! This was so entertaining for a game where you just walk around talking to worms in a dead world. I could never predict what sort of little weirdo I was going to run into next, and the Queen's deadpan personality gradually became really funny in its own right.
At first it felt like all the jokes were there to leaven the existential horror, then I started to realize the deeper message is that our whole world has always been a joke... and yet, the Queen never completely abandons hope for wormanity.
Cool game!
I wrote some mechanics feedback in a pastebin: https://pastebin.com/0Dc61Qw9 (Not posting them inline this comment because I realized they could spoil the mechanical learning for anyone who hasn't played it yet.)
Have you played Etrian Odyssey 2 by any chance? This reminded me a bit of it, since that game has a really cool debuff class: https://etrian.fandom.com/wiki/Hexer
