The Decisive/Cautious stat pair really doesn’t work for me, because they’re two different things. It’s possible to be decisive and cautious, after all, if you’re quickly and confidently choosing cautious actions.
I think something like Aggressive/Cautious would fit better the way the stats seem to be used, because a lot of the +Decisive choices felt like they were sort of aggressive ‘take charge of the situation’ things.
Hmmm, I see what you mean; I did wonder about Bold or Daring when I was first thinking of words, though Daring feels a little more physical/danger-orientated and I would want it to be clear that the stat can be be useful in a non-physical situation. Aggressive feels a little loaded, as does Reckless which would be another potential one.
This is the description on the stats page:
If you are Decisive, you are more bold, brash, and audacious. You will be better at jumping into action and convincing other people to have the confidence to do the same. It will be harder to hold yourself back or advise others to be careful. If you are Cautious, you are more restrained, vigilant, and considered. You will be better at spotting danger and making plans to cover every eventuality. It will be harder to dive into a situation or convince others that there is nothing to be concerned about.
Maybe Bold would match that description better.
I think Brash/Cautious may fit a bit better than Bold/Cautious, even.
Nice to see this is out! Can’t wait to play this after a long day of programming.
Not sure if I missed something, but saw that you are coding up Chapter 5, and that Chapter 2 is up on Patreon. Did I miss 3/4 somehow?
No, you’re not missing anything, I’m just working a fair way ahead of what’s out there right now 
It helps me to have a bit of distance between the initial draft and what I put up online so I have better perspective on edits to make based on feedback, plus I want it to be signed off by my editor before I put it up (though that makes less of a difference as it’s usually fairly quick). I’ve realised that doing it more quickly than that puts pressure on myself, as well as making me a bit too focused on polish as opposed to going forward with drafting new sections.
I’m planning to put Chapter 3 up on Patreon in October and publicly in November - alternating months.
Right now I’m writing Chapter 5 - have just passed 20,000 words on it! Sometime before October I’m also going to go and add a scene to Chapter 3 that I was considering when drafting and wasn’t sure about (though I am sure now).
Edit: and after today’s workday I’ve sailed past a 50,000 average playthrough length. I’m delighted!
I am going through the first two chapters, and once again, I am a pacifist. As with most other games. This is surprising, as I have always played a semi-martial pacifist character in every, if not most, game I have (the reasons I ought not to divulge).
My comments:
Raffi seems to take up most of the spotlight in the second chapter. Is there a reason why? Is there an option to choose to go to the festival (or what that is) with the others?
The new, quaint setting is introduced in a way that is not so many details all at once that it’s overpowering, but also not bland. The pacing is also improved and more consistent than the previous entries, despite the length- a sign that your writing is still bringing across a sense of engagement. The references to previous entries, are of course, something to be praised.
The new team, including Catarina’s classmates, are a fun yet solid bunch. Catarina and the PC are a solid combo, indeed.
Those who want to romance Denario are clearly going for an enemies-to-lovers approach here, as with your previous games. Clearly something’s afoot here…
Reckless is somewhat negative as a stat descriptor. Bold would be more appropriate and positive- “to boldly go where…”
All the best for the next few chapters! I clearly like where this is going- you’ve come through again!
Thanks so much for the thoughts and well wishes! I think I will probably go for Bold if I do change it, though I’m not sure when I’ll change it in-game.
There are a few core character scenes that happen on all playthroughs: seeing Matia’s family, Savarel overseeing prayers at breakfast and then the church ceremony, fetching Korzha for the phone call, and going around the market with Raffi and the students. The longer talks/scenes with the characters (breakfast, classes) are triggered based on the PC’s choices/stats, so you may have happened to align with Raffi a lot on this playthrough! (Savarel gets the most core scenes in this chapter because they have the least in Chapter 1 and there’s a decent chance the player barely spoke to them. In Chapter 3 it spreads out very evenly.)
It’s always a bit of a balancing act to juggle chances to get to know everyone vs making it feel different on different playthroughs depending on what paths are being taken. I think the market scene needs to stay Raffi-centric, because of overseeing the students and with what the other characters are up to at that moment. I may take a look at the breakfast scene to see if I can communicate to the player about there being different routes through it; maybe there could also be a little something in the class if you had breakfast with the person you’re in class with. I’ll have a think!
@HarrisPS I just discovered the book and I love it, sorry if this has already been asked, but do you have any actor/actress that you imagine as Fiore? I know that some authors don’t like giving ‘faces’ to their characters and prefer to leave it to the readers imagination, but I’ve always been terrible at it, so if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it!
Ah thank you so much and welcome to the forum! I haven’t found references that exactly “match” Fiore yet (or Matia) but there’s a rambling post from me about it over here. The short answer is that I have a clear picture when I think about Fiore but it’s not always easy to find images that totally suit them. I’ve added a few more to my list over time.
If female or nonbinary they would definitely wear this outfit, though, or this one; male Fiore would definitely wear this to a fancy occasion.
Edit: actually @megissa I was procrastinating a bit this morning and found some references that are a little closer than what I had previously:
(tagging @vignatic as well as I remember you being interested about this subject before!)
Amazing thank you very much!
Took me a long while, but I finally answered the form. Hopefully the idea of giving some characters a non-answer of silence isn’t too radical. 
Not at all, thank you so much for answering and for your comments! 
I have been incorporating more quiet/restrained choices in this one than I sometimes do, but it’s very helpful to hear when it would suit to have one in there. As with any point where anyone feels like none of the choices suited their character - quiet or loud - I love to hear about it, because I can either add it in there directly or make sure I consider it more in other scenes down the line.
Yup, and then after a sleep I remembered the one (it’s actually more expansive than that) thing I thought I was missing. 
The shadow training is a very interesting idea. I really like that despite Alva having her own ideas, MC can refuse in the name of a lack of interest in the field they’re ‘weakest’ at.
In his mind, he certainly does not need the crafting training, because his actual goal in the lifetime of his career is to be a full-fledged surgeon. The very best, which means focusing even more on medicine. This is going to present an interesting personal challenge for Savarel, because my MC isn’t that interested in them as a person, and so may be a bit of a grouch when feeling sore from back strain. If you’re gonna care, be a professional who takes the job seriously, or back away, I guess. It’s not as personal as they took it, though. 
As a reader, I haven’t really decided which RO to consider for my MC. He’s the midrange age group of the three potential, so he has that very tasty position of being able to say “you are being immature” to the younger, while also speaking like a ‘not-quite-but almost peer’ to the eldest characters, which means they can also do that to him, and I will absolutely be there to mock him if it does happen. (Depending on the feel of the scene, anyway; could just be mildly saddening instead. 
)
But remaining undecided about which one my MC might become attracted to means none of the shadow scenes with Savarel are likely to be romantic, which is just as well considering his full focus would be on just refining his medical skill, and knowledge anyway. Sav would have to do something pretty stern/dramatic to get my MC to change his perception of them… Which is probably why Korzha is in the lead on my end of things. Hasn’t done anything in particular to have that position, which is why I’m still not set on anyone.
For the sake of answering a potential curiosity–I did play through the crafting shadowing scene. My MC sees Matia as “that older neighborhood kid” to his “hater of hometown” so for various reasons that are decidedly personal to him, the flirting there wasn’t going to be received that well. Handled gracefully enough by just being steady, and patient; he knows how it is with lonely soldiers, so at the least he isn’t weak in the polite/gentle rebuff department of ‘social graces’, even if socializing in general feels like an unwanted time waste to him. Plus, he at least wants to take the Dean’s request seriously; there were students present! Matia, please! 
But it does all beg the question of what Alva sees for him, despite him actively knowing what he wants for himself. To be at the head of the medical field, being able to come closest to guaranteeing the safety of any patient, or emergency that is put in his path with his dedicated training. (No one is perfect, but he knows this, and wants to be the best anyhow. Yes, despite his mild ‘misanthropy’ that’s his goal. Don’t have to like people to take helping/saving them very seriously. 
)
So what did Alva have in mind? 
I can’t help but believe there’s something she personally wanted to see happen by trying to get him to branch out.
I love hearing about how your MC is feeling, it’s really lovely! I will not say too much about Kass and Alva’s internal motives at this stage 
but it’s really fun to hear player and PC perspectives on things as they bubble away. These springtime chapters are laying a lot of groundwork about plot/setting/characters/PC self-expression and starting actions so it is important to me that the PC feels characterful and reasonably varied when playing!
Now that’s a good foundation to lay and PC’s thoughts and feelings is an integral part of the story!
Fortnightly Progress Update
I’ve had a much bigger proportion of my time spent on writing this fortnight, and I’m honestly loving getting back into things! I don’t expect to write as much as this every fortnight, but it has been really wonderful to take a good run at it.
Current wordcount: 218531
Fortnight’s wordcount: 31480
Average playthrough wordcount: 54934 (more than Blood Money!!!)
I’ve been steadily working through Chapter 5 and am about three-quarters through! It is not the longest chapter of the game yet. It will be by the end of next week. There has been plottiness and characterfulness and connection and arguments and tension and kisses and very delicious food descriptions.
Happy September, everyone! I hope you have a lovely weekend!
After around 47000 words and an August of much slower work, Chapter 5 is drafted! I’m really pleased with what I’ve done with this one - there are some tensions in both town and school, and between some of the characters, which the PC can defuse (or fire up) and various developments with character plotlines.
I think because of working on this a lot faster than my previous games, earlier chapters are fresher in my mind so I’m in a better position to go back and tweak things to make a better throughline now, rather than earlier chapters feeling so far away and ending up making those changes during beta.
All of which to say that my next step is to return to Chapter 3 and making a few edits so the developments in Chapter 5 feel more organic (and that some hints about some of the characters are revealed earlier, so the relevant Chapter 5 interactions follow on better and feel more rewarding).
Once I do that I’m going to do at least one playtest of everything so far myself for a vibe check before moving onto Chapter 6. There is SO much stuff in Chapter 6 (some of which I pushed from Chapter 5 because … there was so much in Chapter 5 
) so I need to figure out a few things to make sure it’s manageable.
I’m excited about the update! I feel very in tune with my Captain Carosi, because my knee is also acting up today.
Replaying the first chapter to get my saves in order, and my immediate thought was that the Crafts skill option for dealing with bandits (which I chose because Carosi was in search+rescue) is, uh. Evocative? When do I get to tell Savarel that I’m good at using restraints quickly? Not that I object, haha. This is definitely something that I can lean into.
Anyway, chapter 2!
The description of the dorm room the MC stays in reminds me obscurely of a bed & breakfast hotel.
The morning’s one of the tricky points as far as your pain goes. After a night in bed, you’re often stiff and uncomfortable.
Heh, too true.
This time, recovery involves a great deal of stretching, focused on your knee as well as your hip, since both hips suffered when compensating for the injury.
Took a break at this point to do my own stretches. I do appreciate the injury being very present in the MC’s life.
…Smuggling syrup into the dining hall in what must look a lot like a liquor flask is a very telling Matia character moment.
I’m glad to see the return of the social tutor system from CDLC. I really enjoyed that as a mechanic for improving a low skill, as well as a vehicle for characterization.
You’ll be happy to know I did a full-body cringe when Catarina read Fiore’s letter, over the bit about puberty. Still, it was satisfying to gently steer her towards being a bit more considerate of her peers. I wasn’t terribly considerate, at that age, as I recall.
When writing the letter to Fiore, it was hard to resist the thought that the gray cat was really a very significant clue to… something.
I liked the banter that mentioned the RA MC touring Guiyara. I’m excited to see the map grow, too. It makes the world feel so lived-in.
I do want to lean on Raffi to not let Simone walk all over them, but I’d rather not do it by embarrassing them in public about their money situation. I imagine there will be other opportunities, later.
Though I’m very curious about Matia’s family drama, I don’t think my MC has it in her to pry. Not in church, anyway.
The church’s glass roof is an interesting detail, although it’s astonishing that a building that’s part glass lasted so long! Very impressive.
I have a lot of thoughts about Denario, too, but I want to let them percolate a little longer.
While I was looking through the previous game recaps on the stat page, I ran into a few “unknowns” on the RA recap that might be bugs. In the section about Fabien and Trevelyan.
I’m so pleased and excited to read your thoughts! I do hope your knee calms down.
Crafts is a bit of a general skill for building things, making or destroying things with one’s hands in general, so… knots feel like part of that haha! Savarel is probably pretty good with them
The teenagers are a lot of fun to write… very frequently cringe-inducing. But I like showing them being goofy sometimes too - they think they’re very mature but of course they really aren’t, heh.
I’m not sure if the Elene’s Prospect church is quite as fancy as this one (I don’t think it’s as tall, at least) but some of the Teranese Church architecture definitely draws from the Wayfarer’s Chapel in Los Angeles:
I like comparing it in my mind to the churches on Teteriuk - I did have a reference image at one point but mislaid it, but this is pretty representative:
Those stray "unknown"s are definitely bugs - I’ll take a look, thank you!
This evening I did have a think about this… I think Chapter 6 is going to be, in some ways, basically two separate chapters. It will be challenging, I think, but will also feel really different on different paths and things will converge more for Chapter 7… and I do like a challenge.
