is there a way to save breden and other members of your party? or is this a set-in-stone event?
If you are talking at the beginning, then yes you can save Breden and the others. Whichever stat you specialize in will determine which course of action you need to pick at the start for it to succeed.
Just before the demo was taken down, I saw that the MC could call on the angels to help fight against the attack in the final battle. Can that plea succeed? And what does it take? I was the ecclect.
You can certainly think Breden’s a Kryptast. But if you tried to “flip” xhim based on this assumption, Breden would say xhe’s already on your side, and quickly get defensive and angry as it became clear what your assumptions were.
Breden can come to the end of the game alive (and your companion for the next chapter, if you choose – like Kalt, Suzane, or Ciels). The only set-in-stone death in this game is (I think) your father’s. As pointed out above by @Norilinde, even Horion can make it to the end of the game without a death notice, with the right timing of his kidnapping and release.
This issue was noted about 300 posts upthread, and the answer was:
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Now imagine both living as a helot under this system and being betrayed by the only “noble” you had started to tentatively trust and like a bit and then you’ll get why my character views this as an existential conflict to root out the caste system here as nothing worthwhile at all can be accomplished unless and until that is done in his mind.
The main object lesson of my character is that I think we can all of us become that bad if we’re put in exactly the right (or wrong) circumstances. Well that and the difficulties of any sort of moderation (particularly the difficulty of doing so when you do not trust any of the old elites at all) when you sincerely believe your conflict to be existential.
I do still think that for my character his conflict will be existential as long as the caste system remains, since legally there is no way out of it and it prohibits him from doing anything worthwhile at all.
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For interest, a hundred runs of Randomtest is currently giving an average playthrough length as 52,517 words. Given that total words are in the 600,000 range, I guess on purely structural terms I’m going for replayability in a big way here.
I’d welcome input from anyone who’s been lurking and only recently started playing it on whether you found yourself any more or less inclined to replay it than you would the average CoG game. 
If I don’t pull people into it on their first playthrough enough for them to try at least 4-5 plays, they’ll miss a lot of what I’ve put into it…
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That should only happen if you’re overt. You can already get xhim to give you a Kryptast code.
I was thinking that if you take xhim with you acrossthe Ward and work your relationship even more, then maybe you could flip xhim if your smart enough or charismatic enough.
The key thing is that Breden has to trust you, and believe that you trust xhim while thinking that xhe is a Kryptast, rather than thinking that you distrust xhim because xhe’s a Kryptast.
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I think the replayability is evident from the first playthrough, and I think people will definitely want to try out all kinds of options, whether to do “better” through the winter or summer, see if they can get more hints as to whether or not Breden really is the traitor, check out the “powers” available from having a different skill, or just working on the achievements.
I think what makes XoR especially successful in this regard is the simplicity of the stats you created for the underlying system. There are only 3 main stats, each with very clear and specific perks. You simply choose your strength and weakness once, then the rest of the game reflects your choice back at you. Each time the MC fails at something it’s obvious which other skill was needed to make it work, and that encourages players to try a new character to see what would happen if they could succeed.
Add in the genuinely difficult decisions to make, as well as the beautifully written “flavor” text, and the million-and-one tiny things you added that make every playthrough a little different and I have a hard time imagining the person who would play it only once and never think “I wonder…”.
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With the different characterisation, different viable strategies, wide differences between Helot and Noble, and different bits of lore found depending on your choices, I easily played the game about 10 times over. I was something of an evangelical for the game with my friends, a lot of them were playing the game through multiple times to experiment and learn.
A single game being around 50k-60k words is vastly preferable to me, when the choices and differences are as meaningful as what you’ve put together.
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@Havenstone Just curious, is there a specific reason that the MC can’t be of a yeoman family?
Same reason you can’t be from a merchant family or a priestly one. Each new background adds exponentially to the amount of work involved in writing the game – and yes, that’s taking into account loads of shortcuts and handwaves I’ve allowed where, strictly speaking, a helot and aristo MC should have a different idiolect, get different responses from subordinates and strangers, etc.
Allowing an MC to play from an extreme of either privilege or non-privilege is I think also more thought-provoking and makes for more striking choices (which is what these games are all about, after all). Playing someone from the mushy middle, whether closer in status to aristo (merchant) or helot (yeoman) would add customizability but also be perhaps allow the player to be a bit too comfortable. To keep it non-mushy and interesting would certainly be possible, but that would take even more work. And I’d rather get the series done before I turn 80. 
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Well as far as privilege goes the aristo background is basically dirt-poor gentry. Particularly since even the rich provincial “nobles” like Hector probably lead lives of luxury that would make our Arab oil princes blush. We’ll probably get to see what the Hegemony defines real privilege and luxury as once we get to some of the nicer areas near the end of next game, right? I expect it will serve further enhance the disgust and loathing my mc already feels towards the current elites.
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You’re 75 now, right? So it’ll be done soon?
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As it happens, I’m forty now, so if these keep taking me six years apiece to write…
But I reckon there’ll be a sabbatical year or two at some point before then when I can work full time on getting them done quickly.
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Hi, may i ask where the link for this game is? I’d love to give it a test.
Its heading to private beta testing now - so the link was taken down.
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I agree wholeheartedly with what @Nonvita said about replayability. The very beginning makes it more than clear that there are several ways to go about your playthrough. Helot or Noble? Pious or Nefarious? All For One or One For All?
As the story develops and more branches appear you’re left with a feeling that each choice matters. When you see this come to fruition right before your eyes it really makes you want to explore other avenues to see if they are just as thrilling. Honestly, one of the first IFs that felt like an actual game and I really enjoyed that.
I most definitely will buy the polished piece and playthrough it several times. I mean, it took me at least 3 times to get ‘Winter’ right before I even allowed myself to delve more into the story. 
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I fully agree with pretty much everything here.
News like this always makes me think of XoR now and those kinds of real life examples are certainly a big part of why my mc is as radical as he is when it comes to dismantling the Karagond/ Xthonic caste system. While India is my main inspiration when it comes to dealing with the caste system I imagine Nepal being a former Hindu Kingdom is certainly not immune, right @Havenstone?
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Dear friends,
We’ve survived the pun rebellion and four years of slooooow authorial progress. Now at long last it’s time for official beta testing.
Of course, plenty of you have done more than I could ask already. But if you’re up for providing thorough feedback via Jason, please let him know.
We’re almost there!
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