I’m sorry it took me so long to get more detailed feedback down; I wanted to replay the demo and it took me a while to have the time. Spoilers are unmarked in the collapsed sections, so don’t read through until you’ve played the demo!
Random Reactions
Parking on campuses is hard enough without faculty being jerks and parking thoughtlessly! Grrrr. I think no matter what MC I play, I’ll be parking carefully.
Not getting coffee with my pie?! The horror! (Especially cut rate dessert like you get at banquets. You need coffee to go with them.)
This is probably just a me thing, but I really dislike the frat people. Playing jokes on your friends is fun. Playing jokes on people you’ve never met seems mean and I don’t like it. It wasn’t harmful, but it wasn’t very nice either.
Stupid half stairs. My building had them too and they are not user friendly.
Fucking Desmond.
datefriends. I like that.
“Did she really say, “Knock, knock?” instead of knocking?” This makes me think of John Mulaney, which is always a good thing.
Probably More Useful
I like the method you’ve chosen for establishing your pronouns.
How secret is pattern magic? Are there structural things keeping it secret e.g. Harry Potter’s Statue of Secrecy or is it just not talked about because you’ll get committed? If there are degree programs it kind of implies a structure of some sort.
I really, really like the time slips with the memory pattern. It’s an interesting way to establish character backstory. I’m interested to see if there are implications to it beyond a narrative device. Does time flow normally during that? Am I hanging out in a dark banquet room for the same amount of time as the events took in the past? A student does say we stood still for a long time in the basement part.
I’d be curious to find out why Darcy picked us as their partner. Was it just that we’d already been speaking? I also look forward to seeing if their method changed for clearing their mind in the present.
Even though I’ve read it several times, I always laugh at “I’m responding poorly because the advice is bad and dumb.” He’s not wrong! But I’m trying to defuse the situation here!
I assume we’ll meet up with M again at some point? I feel bad about their injury.
“…appropriate, since the department hired you after he vanished near the end of last school year.” That’s ominous!
Typos/Grammar
Sorry if any or all of these have already been addressed!
Missing a period when Manish is introduced: “He has brown skin, and wears his black hair slicked back His slap bracelet…”
After flattering the dude who threw the seal at M, the female Theta says “Someone thinks he’s clever,” which is a pronoun error because I’m using she/her. (This only happens in the student mixer branch; it was the correct pronoun when I went to my dorm first.)
Either Darcy gave me two high fives, or that sentence was repeated. (I wrote this in my first pass, but now I don’t recall exactly where it was. Placement test maybe?)
Overall, I’m really impressed and have enjoyed rereading and finding differences between branches. I’m a little intimidated by how many things there are going to be to do in the game: trying to juggle them all will be challenging!
My first MC is both completely ready to pop Darcy in the snoot and still wistful about what could have been and attracted to his sneaky face. For me myself, I’m super mad at him for being so self centered. Even playing as a person from a non-magical family with no helping hands, he still acts like it’s okay for him to cheat you out of the fellowship. I hope at some point we can actually get him to acknowledge how shitty that was.