Hey there,
This is incredible and it is clear that you are an experienced author. Super excited to spend money on this when its published!!
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Amazing! Thank you for your hard work, then and now. Safe Word was definitely one of the standout books for me, and not being able to replay it or find anything remotely similar has left a deep hole to fill. 
I’ve finished the demo and I’m definitely glad that I checked it out! I’m slightly wishing my character had more magic but hopefully that’ll come in time. Really excited to read more!
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Thanks! The magic element has definitely been one of the biggest pieces of feedback I’ve gotten and a huge part of what I’ll be working on as I continue to revise.
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Happy New year everyone, wish you all good health and success this year, stay healthy guy’s 
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Very cool story! I like the fact that there are no childish disputes and the main character is up to the task, so that we don’t need to think twice if he can handle the situation. Although, It will be very cool if you add a bit of background as how he acquired those skills. This idea came to me when he fought two professional killer orcs at once, plus paired a flying arrow. Just, how?
But I want to remind that it is very good story. I think that I am going to put it my favorite list among “The Great Tournament”.
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Just played the demo it’s pretty good. Thank you for your hard work
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Hi. I just finished the demo. I just wanted to say that I enjoyed what I have read so far. While this story is fairly linear, there is a lot of replayability to explore, with even some choices that I didn’t expect to affect some scenes with its smaller details.
I only wish that some of the conversations with the characters were a little longer, because it feels like those scenes are quickly skimmed by the story, as if none of the characters are supposed to be meaningful.
Good luck on your book. I am looking forward to the full release.
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I wonder who can be in the poly? Like maybe the queen or only our companions?
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I just stumbled to the wip a few days ago and i really enjoyed it.
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I also noticed that the official game is being released soon, can’t wait.
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Stats feel little wonky. I don’t know what responds for what and they feel very general - would stealth check my ingenuity or swiftness, what does might respond to? Is it possible to make a stat guide?
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I think “clashes” is a typo. Clashed sounds like it’d fit more - and in general, dialogue options feel very direct. My character became a spy, but the lack of neutral, less emotional answers makes me friends with everyone just because I pick the approving answer out of all given - and when they start asking about the Scribes and the sword in the tombs, I hoped for an option to lie. The MC in general feels very… honest and frank.
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Thanks for the feedback and catching that typo! In a coming update, the stats have been made much clearer. There is a certain degree of conceptual overlap with stats in that no one stat covers all the things a “class” would do well – like ingenuity, swiftness, and stealth are all different skills that are great for a thief, but it would be difficult to max out all of them so a player will have to make some choices. But the choices that set these stats will be much clearer, as well as the choices that test them. There is also now going to be a guide to each stat within the main stats menu.
I have also tried to pepper in more neutral choices throughout to help players who want to play it more close to the vest, and I have tried to make better use of descriptions for player motivation within dialogue choices. In the current demo, most dialogue choices are just the dialogue choice – in the coming update, dialogue choices are more like to include things like ‘“Sure, I’ll help you,” I say, lying through my teeth.’ in order to make the motivations behind the dialogue choices clearer and add complexity to them. The MC is definitely quite frank in the current demo!
I am hoping to get this all up within the next month or so and can’t wait for everybody to see how it’s progressed thanks to all the great forum feedback.
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I just played through the demo and was pretty impressed by it. My favorite feature overall would be the unique race dependent choices you get that adds just that much more immersion and flavour to it. Having said that, however, I would like to address my main gripe with the game.
For me, in my opinion, the choice of becoming a spy for the Queen feels like it comes on a bit too early and with no logical reason to say yes to her other than to seduce her. I mean, this woman has basically attacked and invaded your entire city and killed numerous of your fellow inhabitants, possibly including friends and loved ones literally a chapter earlier. My solution for this is to perhaps push this later into the story? Or make it possible to just say maybe for the time being to her.
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I felt justified in siding with the queen because… well, lady has brought order to the realm. It’s not in her interests to keep the old feuds, to let humans and elves duke it out - she needs a stable realm. And, truth be told, elves ruling the entire world feels so unsafe I’m glad they’re knocked down a peg.
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@vera and @GhostScorch: thank you both for that perspective on the early choice to side with the queen. This was the focus on some back and forth with editors early on in the process, and debate over whether to push it later. For me, I originally fought to keep it early, because it would lead to more differentiation on a second playthrough if a player played as a “hero” on the first playthrough and wanted to play the more “villainous” route the second time.
In truth, I think after hearing your feedback and the feedback from editors, there is likely a middle ground like what GhostScorch suggests in the second paragraph that can maintain this as a distinct route through the story but give players a little more opportunity to be lukewarm about it and hear more of the queen’s side of the story before fully throwing in with her. This route will be the focus of a lot of upcoming revisions, and I hope it can address the concerns about it coming too early while also preserving the path for the reasons vera sided with her. Thank you both!
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Its a pretty interesting project with great potential, i’m quite enjoying it.
My ñain criticism would be with a discordance/dissonance about the scope of the conflict. The conflict at first seems present as this massive war of continental span, with massive armies and several nations in interplay…and yet the actual events read more like a the conflict of a warchief at a relatively local level. Small towns, local militias, “low level” adventurers being the key to the defeat of the BBEG.
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I love this. Keep it up, my dude!
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Played through the demo, and I quite enjoyed this. The characters are somewhat fantasy archetypical but not in a bad way, it makes them easy to grasp and they build nuance as they go along without having a lot of lore dumped on the player all at once.
The way events as the story progresses give insight into the various cultures is well put together. The only thing I didn’t really get was the place of halflings in the world, as most of the plot seemed to elaborate more on the Human/Elf/Dwarf/Ork balance of power.
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Hi all! I’ve been hard at work on the back half of the book as well as making revisions based on all the great feedback received so far.
I’ve uploaded a new demo that contains a pretty big overhaul on the first couple of chapters, as well as the action-packed sixth chapter in which a battle with the queen’s army unfolds out on the front.
Here are some of the changes I made:
- The player gets more time to learn about their hometown and background before the queen’s army strikes. There is significant new unique material in the prologue for each background.
- The player is able to dabble in some magic early on, and learn about each culture’s unique relationship to magic and their own magical traditions. New magic spells and items are introduced throughout.
- Romance threads with each character are introduced earlier (and will pay off for the first time in chapter six!)
- One of your party members (and potential love interests) will be introduced earlier in the story and there are more unique interactions with each party member depending on your background.
- Some extraneous material has been cut to focus the story and get to the plot and key characters a little more quickly.
- More description and lore to help draw the player deeper into the story.
- and more!
There’s lots of work left to do as I wrap up the end of the book and continue to polish these early chapters, but I wanted to get a demo up that’s more indicative of where the book is at now. I hope you all enjoy, and I wanted to thank everyone so much for the great feedback (and typo-catching!) I’m excited to keep improving the book with all your thoughts and feedback.
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