itch.io

Small issues so hopefully you can track them down easier:

• I chose to go to my apartment with Hayden but it seems smth got mixed up because the passage references floating and Hayden looking at it in awe. I presume that smth went wrong and its mixing my apartment with the house boat (apartment boat?)
• After discussing with Asra (selected best friend earlier) I go outside to meet with... Gabriel. Seems whatever check you have didn't recognize that I'd been with Hayden and slotted me with Gabriel instead.

Very enjoyable and well anticipated update nonetheless, hope the next one is sooner than a year but writing is a fickle creature that tends to get away from us.

WOO!!

Revisions and rewrites are a natural part of any writing process, and I'm always glad to get a little insight into what's going on in the development process. Keep up the good work ^^

Please add an option to increase the font size. This is barely manageable for me and I have okayish eyesight.

LOL thats very fair, and I wish you luck on learning all the fun lil things you can do with twine then! Looking forward to the next chapter!

I hope this is continued eventually, and that the author is doing well.

Errors I found while playing:

• Various minor grammatical errors, I won't catalogue them all here but it might be worth getting a proofreader of some kind.
• When chosing the "short" height I get an error where a variable call ($height3) is visible in the text and thus is not set. Later in the story, when this variable is called it then doesn't work properly because it was not set properly here. Also just as a note as a developer, the way this variable is used seems to define the height of a specific character as a string of text like "a woman shorter than you" or such. This is generally not how these kinds of variables are used, more usually being compared in an if statement whenever a character's height is important so that the author can write appropriate descriptions on the fly and doesn't have to rely on the same text string forever.
• When going to the infirmary for the sick old man, I did not listen to the voices or look behind any curtains but the following text seems to imply that I did (the doctor being suspicious of me and a later passage saying I ponder what I read, but the variable for what I read is not set so it just displays the variable name).
• Two commas in the scene where the doctor returns with the old man: "My eyes snap to the back of the room,, but"
• When interacting with Wylder, taking her hand (both flirt and normal) reduces her relationship instead of adding to it. The relationship stat goes from 50 to 5 or 7 depending which I pick, likely the result of the variable call setting the relationship stat to a number instead of adding that number to the current relationship value.

Overall a promising little demo. Just needs a clean up pass to tighten some stuff up. One personal pet peeve of mine is how often numerals will find their way into the text. Like instead of "you two" it will say "you 2". Its not major but in my opinion it comes off as sloppy, sort of like inserting texting abbreviations like 'tho' or 'smth'. Numeral characters aren't usually used for small numbers in stories. That's nitpicky though and ultimately I can look past it since the premise is intriguing.

YAY glad to hear it!! This is definitely one of my favorite demos I've stumbled across and I look forward to more.

Glad you liked it and it clicked some things into place for you!

No problem, glad I could help!

OOO SURPRISE UPDATE YAY

Alrighty played through it again and figure I'd just send a small collection of issues I encountered.

In chapter 2, when being cautious about Sonia walking in to check on you after the bath, the sarcastic option is not available and instead I see this error: Error: cannot execute macro <<link>>: unable to parse macro argument expression ""<q>I drowned $them."</q> " + "(Sarcastic +)"": Invalid regular expression: missing /

After playing through it again, choosing mostly the same choices, all 3 options in that scene with Sam are still locked.

Hope this helps, I know how bug squashing can be sometimes.

Small error in the new update it seems: When sam is talking to you and asks about being a bladeweaver all 3 options are locked for me. Is it an issue of needing to start over to pick up some flags earlier in the game or...?

Late reply but maybe if anyone happens to glance through the comments maybe this will help someone.

To get your wings and horns color and such to work you must manually write it in. Every slot where you can write it in, you need to write it in. Even if you want one of the pre-defined choices you need to write it in manually.

(technical explanation, skip if you want) This is essentially because the write-in options don't seem to work with the radio buttons, if you look at them you cant actually select the write in options. There isn't a radio button for them. The result is that the write in options override whatever radio button option you select.

On the note of pronouns/language since you bring up the canon language perhaps only having 'they', I spent a while working on a more gender inclusive language a while back and came up with a neat idea. Read if you wanna (its long, sorry).

The basic idea takes the concept of keigo - literally translated to respectful language, it's the Japanese grammatical structure for adding respect/formality. The language would have several different levels of formality, for the purposes of pronouns we only really need 2 however so I'll only go into the 2 we need.

• First, the "standard" formality. This is the formality you would use with strangers, coworkers, bosses, etc. In a more fleshed out language there might be more formalities above this, but they all would treat pronouns essentially the same as the standard. All pronouns in the standard formality are agender. The closest English translation would probably be they/them although that doesn't convey the true absence of gender that standard formality has. It is simply nongendered.
• Second, we have the "familiar" formality. This is the formality you would use for close friends, family, etc. In this formality you do have a number of explicitly gendered pronouns, ranging from the standard masculine/feminine, to various neutral/nongendered pronouns, to even perhaps a number of different "gradient" pronouns for different mixes of gender identity. And finally of course someone can always choose to retain the truly genderless pronouns of standard formality should they prefer a more truly "agender" option.

The idea is that when speaking to strangers - and in situations where you need to be respectful and formal - gender is entirely absent. Thus there is not really a risk of misgendering a stranger without learning their preferred pronouns. Then when two people become close enough, they will switch to their familiar pronouns and thus affirm each other through their language as a sign of their closeness. 

Since exchanging familiar pronouns is baked into the structure of the language, it becomes a natural part of introducing oneself. An English approximate would be like introducing yourself as "X, familiarly Y - xe/xer" or even simplified to "X, Y - xe" where X is one's family name/formal name/title and Y is one's personal name. For my MC it would be like introducing her as "The Eye, Lyria - she". It also implies some rude, culturally significant ways to introduce oneself like only introducing their formal title without their familiar pronouns and name thus implying that they do not intend to let you get close to them.

This makes a language that makes no default assumptions about a stranger's gender, but still retains gender expression and affirmation through language. Furthermore I think it canonizes gender affirmation as something more intimate and friendly, a sign of respect and friendship.

Sorry if that was a bit long and rambly but I am a language nerd, couldn't pass up the opportunity to talk about pronouns and gender inclusivity in fictional languages. Hope it was an interesting read at least.

Small comment based on the indicator explanation on the first page:

It shows empty heart is single character, full heart is multiple. But then empty diamond is multiple and full diamond is single.

It would make more sense for empty heart/diamond to be single, and full heart/diamond to be multiple right?

The timers in this are... poorly executed in my opinion. The only thing they seem to test is reading speed. 5 minutes is waaay more than enough to give you time to make an informed decision so it doesn't provoke a quick reaction under pressure from the reader, instead it is more of a challenge for you to read, digest, and understand the long and drawn out prose that accompanies the timer. A fast reader will have minutes left on the clock to carefully consider options, while a slow reader will be left with much less time unless they skim-read the page. I don't really see the point in testing reading speed so I can only assume that this is a mishandled mechanic.

Ideally, a timer would be on its own page with only necessary text. The decision you must make, the timer, and the choices you have.

Small editing note: when determining the MC's romantic feelings you missed a '<' on the 'feelingsnophys' option so it didn't work properly.

Loved this, and I hope to see more if the dev is able to get back into it.

This game seems to not have been updated since 2022, yet the tumblr and patreon are still active. What is the status of the game at the moment, and can we expect more updates?

Edit: Dug through the patreon and answered my own questions. Hope the dev is feeling better and is enjoying writing again, and hope to see more of this wonderful little project.

Oh god yeah that last 10% is always a pain. Glad you are still pushing through though! I shall wait patiently then.

Any word on progress towards v3? The beta page looks very clean and is much more readable to me

Fair enough, I sort of figured. Looking forward to RPGM3 then!

And GLHF with your other projects!

I'm pretty sure this is not designed to be a virtual table top like you seem to want. Instead it's supposed to be a map editor that you can use to create a map for use with a proper VTT like Roll20 or Foundry. Both of those programs solve your issues: multi player, fog of war/line of sight and dynamic lighting, import custom images for backgrounds.

The export current map as an image file button is in the top left next to the save buttons.

This would probably require restructuring of some systems like the ground tiling but it would be really nice if I could have the walls snap to the vertices of the grid rather than the center spaces of the grid. When playing ttrpgs generally the walls are not drawn in the center of the grid space because it introduces ambiguity as to where the players can stand and it takes up a lot of room.

Also minor gripe but the default skin seems to be absent from the palette editor, had to restart the program after messing with the palette a little to reset to the original skin. I might just be missing it though.