I think that i found a bug. I can’t pass the second boat check with 29 of finesse.
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Hi! Thanks very much for trying out the game. Which boat check is that, and is the game just showing a failure or is it crashing / breaking?
Potential Spoilers
If you’re talking about the check to save a student, that requires some Might or Charisma, not just the initial timing + speed check which I think the latest version of the game makes more explicit.
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Is the check you try to save somebody, only shows a failure. I thought that was a bug because in the code there is a check of Intellect + Finesse > 25
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Ah no, that one isn’t a bug, but thank you for flagging it. If you check the next few lines of code, there’s a follow-up check which also tests Might or Charisma!
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I don’t remember if this information was given, but is Pactbinder the same age as the Transplant’s whose identity they stole?
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Great question. I haven’t given either the Pactbinder or the Original Transplant an exact age in the text, beyond the general implication that they’re both young adults going to university for the first time. They certainly look similar enough in most aspects (age included) that they’re probably not too far apart in age, though.
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Nice story what I’m reading thusfar, but did you mean skeptical? Because sceptical makes me think of septic tanks.
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Hey, thanks for reading and glad you’re enjoying it so far!
‘Sceptical’ is the British English equivalent spelling to ‘skeptical’, so same meaning.
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Ohh I really like this. I like how magic is gained in this world and we being the only ones to acquire it with a pact. I felt like playing a mc who is manipulative and cruel and wants power but will play being nice haha
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Thank you very much! Very pleased that you enjoyed the start.
Excited to find out what your power-hungry MC gets up to as the story progresses, too…
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Really enjoyed what you have so far, what’s a better way to start off a story than with a cold-blooded murder? I liked the different ways MC can react to it and I always felt in control of my choices as a player which is good.
Looking forward to learn more about the Entity, I guess they will have their own, not so pleasant agenda for us. Kind of funny that MC is an outsider pretending to be a different outsider. Doing so much just to get the least desirable social status.
Also, I would love Julian as a RO. He is cute
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Enjoyed it. Like the different options to steal the doubles magic and identity. Someone might catch on to us eventually but for now we stopped living a lie. It’s freaky they looked the same as us. Was that intentional or pure coincidence for the story. I suppose we need more information to find out why it had to be them instead of someone else
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Thank you both very much for the kind words!
Really glad to hear this, and looking forward to showing more of the Entity too.
Haha, yep, the poor MC has found themselves in an interesting situation. Hopefully they can play the cards they’ve been dealt to their advantage…
Thanks for this feedback - it’s definitely noted. My plan is to write the story with the current ‘core’ ROs in mind as I want to control scope creep, but there are a couple of characters (Julian and possibly Silas, of the chars we know about) who I think have enough relevance to the story to qualify as ROs should that ever change, be that in this or a hypothetical future follow-up. (Though for avoidance of doubt my goal is to ensure Pactbinder works as a self-contained standalone story).
Fantastic question. So fantastic that I won’t answer it just now…
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Now while I know it would somewhat skew the gender ratio of ROs, I’ll admit I started to like Lizbet during the whole boat thing. Being able to stick up for a girl trying to tease you is pretty hilarious, and I would like the angle of a RO outside our college for the tension and rocky start.. but I can understand if she’s going to be more of a background character.
…But the relationship bar…
Anyway. Will we be able to choose the ‘true’ name for our MC? Or would it ever be relevant? It’d probably have to be a secret for most of the story if not the whole thing given the circumstances- but I’m curious.
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I’m glad you have a bit of sympathy for Lizbet! She’s a little bit more than a background character, Devereux are Antioch’s rivals, so all of them (including the ones who didn’t speak on the boat and a couple we haven’t met yet) will be relevant to some degree or another going forward. In the (unlikely, at least for the story currently in the works) scenario that I do end up adding another RO, though, she’d definitely be on the shortlist for consideration, though for gender ratio balance reasons I suspect Julian and / or Silas would be likely to win out.
If your MC is ever in a position to disclose their real identity to someone, I will definitely give them an opportunity to share their true name as a part of that, and the player will of course decide said name. Whether or not that situation arises, of course, remains to be seen.
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I did hope that Lizbet might be an option too, so add my vote to the list if you do eventually consider adding an extra RO. No pressure 
.
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Thanks and definitely noted! If nothing else, regardless of what I do with ROs, feedback like this is really helpful in giving me a nudge to ensure Lizbet gets more focus / presence in scenes / chances to have solo interactions with the Pactbinder in general.
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Hi Author, I finished Playing The game And It’s pretty interesting So far I liked the Bit of Lore that We get aswell as The Characters so far, Can’t Wait To Enter The Duelling Society And Interact More with Alice on the next chapters. I do Have A question, Is This project Going To be A series Or a Standalone?
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Hi, thank you very much for the comment, I’m glad you’re enjoying the story so far and I’m really excited to get to some more action too.
Great question and it isn’t one that I have a 100% confident answer to. Short answer is that I’m aiming to write a standalone story about the Pactbinder’s first year at university, but leave the door open for future books covering years 2 and 3.
Long Answer
In an ideal world, I would love to write a Pactbinder trilogy, where each book covers a year of the Pactbinder’s life (covering the beginning to the end of their time at Hightower). I have a broad idea of what a Book 2 and a Book 3 would be about, as well as a picture of what the overall arc would be in that case.
However, it’s more important to me to write this initial story as a self-contained narrative with a proper beginning, middle and end, in case the above isn’t possible (if the book doesn’t get much of an audience, for example, or life gets in the way). More than anything, I’d hate it if I couldn’t continue a series after leaving the first book’s ending too ambiguous or inconclusive.
So my goal is to write Pactbinder as a story that works on a standalone basis, but designed with forwards compatibility for a longer series in mind just in case that does prove possible.
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Brief progress update as it has been a week since my last demo update and I’ve since shifted full focus to writing chapter 2 (though feedback on demo contents is still gratefully received and will be addressed where possible in the C2 update).
- In terms of sheer amount of writing done, I’m ahead of schedule - 13.5k words written since last Sunday, I should have hit 14k by end of day. 10k was my very optimistic target, so extremely pleased here (but I definitely don’t expect this pace to continue!!)
- In terms of progress through the chapter’s contents, I’m slightly behind schedule; I’m almost finished with one of the five days the chapter covers. Not too worried about this, yet, as my suspicion is that a couple of the days will be content light and have less branching, but I’ve been wrong before about how much branching I’d end up doing…
- It’s not actually the pacing that has most stalled me this weekend, though; I’ve badly tied myself up on a specific ‘quest’ involving the Pactbinder’s need to get an outfit for their matriculation ceremony. In my hubris, I decided that this should involve lots of reactivity to the MC’s height and how it relates to their collegemates. This has, err, been painful. But I’m almost through it now…!
- For now I think I’m still on track to post chapter 2 early-mid Feb (pricing in a few days for editing which I think will be needed after writing is done).
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