Thanks so much for the feedback - hugely appreciated.
Bugs: Typos / repetitions all fixed + added a tag to unlock julsecret1 if you get to that branch without already having julsecret1unlocked. I’m expecting to have this out in the ‘3.1’ drop I’m targeting for this weekend.
Other Feedback:
Finn Dance: This will come up again for M PBs romancing Finn. The audience for this specific dance was small (just the other Antiochs) and informal enough that same-sex dances wouldn’t instinctively be read by the wider audience as romantic in a vacuum, but how long can that last…
Ellie Wolf Reaction: This is the second suggestion for something like this I’ve seen, so I think it must be a real gap - thanks for mentioning it! Fixed - my working copy now has a ‘’‘Yes." You say simply’ response.
Extra clothes options: I’ve added a ‘punk’ style to my working copy - leather jackets, denim and boots!
On some other stuff: catching up with Marcus on the Julian thing is absolutely on my agenda. Just trying to find the right place to fit it in terms of pacing. Probably c5…
The player can mention their investigation into strange events during the familiar hunt scene, so for pacing reasons I probably won’t add a separate branch to discuss it earlier with Layla.
Discussing the Kingsgift with the Patron is also on my agenda - I think this fits better later than C2 though, given the King info the MC gets in C3 (plus it would require a really narrow permutation of information gathered + Patron questions asked in C2). Watch this space…
Thanks so much for the kind feedback - hugely appreciated.
Thanks so much! I think the MC doesn’t have enough of a relationship with Daphne for a discussion scene to necessarily work in the context of C3 (it’s mentioned IIRC that they’ve never interacted), but I have added in my working copy an option late in the chapter for the PB to show some internal empathy for the poor girl at the very least.
I went back to replay (not a problem, I assure you ;)) and see what jumped out at me. Purposefully tried to spend time with Julian or Alice as well to get the “fullest” effect. I have a few examples from Ch1, but it wasn’t too bad, so most must be concentrated in Ch2. Otherwise it was mostly just sprinkled throughout every other scene or so at a higher than needed (IMHO) ratio compared to their normal names or pronouns.
This kind of descriptor was used for Julian as well, often identifying his blond hair and that he’s an “older student”. Sometimes it makes sense because it’s referencing his experience as he tours the group, for example, other times it can feel repetitive between scenes. I’ve pulled instances that I noticed while reading/skimming for them, so not logging every single time but likely would catch some where it stood out more oddly to me (i.e., didn’t feel “necessary” as a descriptor based on what was happening). Just because I list it doesn’t mean I think it should definitely be removed.
Ch1
some distance from your group, the blond-haired older student sags (two for one, good deal )
The older student blinks helplessly at her
to his uninspiring proclamation, the older student rests his hands
^all one page apart
If you move next to Julian, that’s four pages in a row: As you head over to Julian, the older student looks at you apologetically.
If you sit next to Alice, it references her hair, but that’s okay because one of the choices is the MC pointing it out: discomfort with your presence from the white-haired girl. → Gesture at her hair. “Is that natural?”
Other uses after this seemed spread out enough for a bit.
The green-coated student (This isn’t repetitive, and since Julian is farther away, I could see identifying him by the colour of his coat, but it still stuck out to me because although this one instance might not be a problem, it helped me identify one reason why I can find the usage of these terms odd/overused; it feels like a step back in the stages of relationships between characters. MC knows Julian by name, his pronouns, and knows it is him specifically who is doing the action. So to go back to referencing him by appearance is like we’ve distanced ourselves from Julian’s character relationally.
Went with Marcus to look for Julian:
The second-year grimaces. "To tell you the truth, (Blond, second-year, and older student were used a few times in the pages before this, but only this one stood out to me. Perhaps because it’s such a short sentence that’s unnecessarily lengthened by the phrase. I’d just put He.)
Marcus elbows the blond in response, drawing a triumphant laugh from Julian. (I’d maybe swap to introduce Julian by his name first, and then add blond or some other descriptor about him at the end of the sentence. Probably something to do with the closeness ranking of name > appearance, so we identify him by name first and then modify by highlighting something we notice about him.)
The second-year definitely seems rather tired out (second year was just used on the preceding page. Maybe swap to older student?)
Ch2
The blond student greets you all hoarsely. “Sorry about the wait. Shall we get going?” His hair is askew (A good example/use! Referencing his hair after makes noticing and identifying his blondness purposeful.)
During tour of Antioch:
Stand by Julian and give him a nod: The older student returns your nod (already referenced him as older student on the preceding page, and it was more fitting there because it calls him a chaperone etc.)
The next page after a discussion topic: Before you can reply to the older student, however, you are both distracted by the sound of Julian’s name being called out from somewhere on the other side of the square. / The source of the call proves to be the second-year student volunteer (because it mentions another second-year in the paragraph after, and the disussion doesn’t have much to do with Julian, I don’t think referring to Julian as an older student here is needed. Can just use “him”.)
Voice strained, he addresses the white-haired girl. (Fine)
The white-haired girl can only offer him a shrug by way of response. (Sure)
There’s an odd gleam in her eyes that makes you wonder whether this is an attempt at humour from the white-haired girl. (Pretty soon after the last instance, and her hair colour has little importance in this case. I’d probably drop the “from the ___” clause completely, or replace it with a personality descriptor for contrast against the humour comment. Like “usually stoic girl” or similar.)
As for Alice, the white-haired girl is dressed just as formally as she was yesterday. (Nothing wrong with this by itself, it’s describing her looks after all, but it’s in a paragraph that talks about everyone’s looks, and she is the only one to referenced with name + hair colour. So it stands out more.)
thankfully only Alice seems to overhear, and the white-haired girl pays the comment no mind.
For his part, the second-year just seems relieved that you and the others aren’t pushing him more
The second-year bids you all a quick farewell before launching back into the air (one page apart from the preceding point)
the blonde girl proves to be in her element and deftly guides
the blonde girl tugs her braid a little self-consciously. (one to point out for Ellie, ^ these are one page apart)
whilst the white-haired girl appears to be drawing almost as much attention as the prince (good use, provides contrast between them but highlights similarity in standing out)
That leaves just you and Alice, though the white-haired girl soon concludes (used again after the preceding page so feels repetitive)
“Spirit. Already awakened.” The white-haired girl responds briskly. (This one was a while later so not too repetitive, but no one else in the group was referenced by anything but their name, plus she responds “briskly” so dragging out the descriptor kind of interrupts the flow a bit.)
The white-haired girl gives you a ghost of a nod by way of response. (When address Alice re: the library, this occurs a few pages after the preceding use ^)
The blond-haired student cajoles you all before giving Margaret, of all people, a solemn bow accompanied by a cheeky grin. “If I might have the honour?” / “Hush, you.” The dark-haired woman chides him (used in subsequent paragraphs, even if for different characters. I’d keep hair descriptor for Margaret, the character we don’t know well, but reference Julian more familiarly with his name rather than by his hair.)
Go to library with Alice: (I know I purposefully followed Alice to get these examples, but I didn’t do that my first playthrough and still felt like “white-haired girl” came up a lot throughout chapter 2.)
The white-haired girl pauses at the very threshold of the dining room (I know Alice is still very distant, that’s part of her character, but if we’re getting a bit closer to her/familiar with her even as a reader, often describing her by her hair, when the other main cast doesn’t have that often, like Layla is always Layla, then it stands out a lot in a “weird” way.)
Not to be dissuaded, the white-haired girl spends a few minutes (on the same page as the previous point)
Though the white-haired girl does raise an eyebrow when she spots the title of your book (another one the page after)
I hope collecting the examples like this are helpful. I haven’t read Ch3 yet, but I’ll keep an eye out if I notice the same overarching '“problem” as above.
Thanks so much - this is super helpful stuff! I did a quick runthrough at the airport yesterday. so I’ll do second pass today with your notes and see where I can further clean stuff up.
Like you say - I’ll probably keep a fair few of these, as I don’t hate using different reference terms other than names to keep things mixed up, but I definitely caught a few where I thought it was egregious (mainly in C2 where I think there’s a few points where you get two ‘white-haired girl’ references on one page) - so it’s really helpful seeing all these examples to help me make sure I’m pinpointing the right ones to fix…
How have you been? With my travels concluded as of this weekend, it’s time for my latest fortnightly update - this one also includes notice that a minor update has been pushed today to the Demo.
Progress Update
With my travels done, a few weeks having now passed since the Chapter 3 drop, and the update I pushed today having gotten the demo in good enough shape for now, I’m planning to begin work proper on Chapter 4 in the coming days.
As I mentioned in my last update, this is expected to be a slightly shorter chapter that covers off what I consider the culmination of the Pactbinder’s first term at Hightower and what I consider ‘part 1’ of the story.
I’m trying to work towards a release some time in July, which I think I’ll be able to honour if I keep to my usual pace, but that may drift a bit depending on how busy work is and whether the chapter ends up longer than I’m planning - there’s some stuff in there that I’ll have to work hard on, including some romance stuff for each core RO, so who knows where I’ll end up! As always, I’ll keep you in the loop.
Demo Mini-Update
As mentioned - I rolled out a small update today, mostly focused on C3 cleanup but with changes throughout the whole demo. I don’t think that the changes are substantial enough to warrant another playthrough for people who’ve already run through C3, but they should improve the experience on future readthroughs!
I’ve cleaned up a number of word repetitions and a few phrasing points throughout the story - hopefully this subtly helps the prose to feel even more polished - anyone who’s doing a replay in coming days, let me know if the changes are noticeable / a net positive…
I’ve fixed a couple of minor demo bugs, including C2 Spoiler: A mixup with who follows Julian after the dance scene if you seek his help in some permutations, and C3 Spoiler A glitch with tracking whether the Pactbinder really had surplus funds to buy an Old Knife
Some extra dialogue options including: Explorers’ Society spoilers: the chance to be more honest with Eleanor about your comfort with violence without being hostile , c3 endgame spoilers: the option to show more concern for Daphne after she disappears
And several more tweaks and adjustments in the above vein!
As always - huge thanks to everybody kind enough to run through Pactbinder and share your thoughts and feelings on the story, characters and prose with me - I appreciate all of you and am always eager to hear your thoughts sand feedback.
Well this was an awkward time to be doing another readthrough lol
I think the update rolled out while I was taking a break so I won’t be able to use my latest save but it was before I completed Chapter 2 so it shouldn’t take me that long to get back to it.
Although I’ll be skimming my way back there so outside of a few screenshots I took, it’s improbable I’ll notice the changes unlike how I was paying attention earlier today. Chapter 3 is still fair game though.
Apologies! One day I’ll be able to drop a chapter without blowing up someone’s run. One day… Hopefully you’re enjoying the readthrough, though!
Good question. It’s not a spoiler per se but I’m going to put my answer in a dropdown just for folk who prefer to piece stuff together through ingame text.
Familiar Abilities
Familiars are just Spirits bonded to mages, so the powers they can have vary just as we’ve seen Spirits with varying powers in-game so far.
The lowest ranking Spirits - Nahemoth spirits, as Adelais can call them in C3 - don’t tend to have abilities at all - just the strength of their physical forms - so often you can have really scary looking Spirits with OK brute strength but no special abilities or resistance to exorcism.
As you go up the Spirit hierarchy, the likelihood that a Spirit possesses magic (or multiple forms of magic!) increases. Some Spirits have abilities that vaguely resemble Masteries, or aspects of a Mastery - e.g. the Weeping Acid Spirit in one C3 branch that seemed to be able to transmute Mist into deadly acid and acid fog, which you could say is a very narrow, if potent, form of Matter or Alchemy magic. Others have even more unique abilities.
Not every ability is unique, though - for example, most of the strongest / highest ranking Spirits tend to have certain shared qualities as well as their unique abilities, but I won’t go into those. And of course, these high ranking Spirits tend to have particularly funky unique abilities!
For Familiars specifically, the ability of the Mage is also a potential bottleneck - it takes a lot of magical strength and know-how to channel enough of Elsewhere’s power into a Spirit to fully power them outside of Elsewhere, so sometimes you get unlucky situations where a Mage gets a great familiar but lacks the talent (be that magical or intellectual) to manifest them outside of the Mists strongly enough for them to use the full extent of their power…
Here’s what I’ve picked up on from my last readthrough, it’s hard for me to notice what has definitely changed from before the update so I just stuck to instances I thought could use adjustment. (Seems like they got uploaded out of order)
First couple is about Adelais when came the opinion about Mind Magic test, I don’t think her descriptor being her white hair sticks well with me, especially if the Pactbinder considers themselves close to her. Alternatively could refer more to her taciturn tendencies.
Third is Eleanor when going to the warehouse, it feels off for 2 reasons this time- one is that it’s just her and the Pactbinder so it’s a bit unnecessary imo to identify who said that sentence. The other thing is that I think she’s the only person refered to as having dirty blonde hair (in her introduction sequence) but I can’t recall any other instance when that descriptor is used for her again. I get that it would feel even more repetitive but there are a lot of characters who either have blonde or brown hair it feels, so in a way that could have felt more indicative of her. Otherwise, I think something like ‘partner’ could have been better in this situation.
Fourth is Eleanor and her new companion, fairly straightforward- a more relevant descriptor like ‘fresh duo’ feels like it would have worked better than individual adresses. In general I think using currently relevant adjectives for the situation would be a good way to get around defaulting to hair colour/style.
Speaking of hair style, not sure this is what the wild hair style choice for the Pactbinder should have looked like.
I found it interesting for the optional starting lecture how uncovering more information about Prof Fausett’ longevity seems to interest Adelais (+1% rel) but there’s no sign of it in the text itself. Not a flaw considering the person in question.
I found a response to Marcus’ inquiry interesting considering what the Pactbinder has potentially told Finlay before when the latter admitted to this being his first time away from home and you could choose to say it was honestly the same for the Pactbinder. So if we choose that we truthfully don’t have a family as well, what does it mean for the Pactbinder’s home? Or would that count as a potential chink in the cover story if it comes up again in Marcus’ and Finlay’s presence?
That about covers it but I might as well put in my new stats, though I have to say I have no idea what worldScore, dormScore, aScore and tScore mean.
Thanks very much - really appreciate it, and I’m very glad you’re enjoying the story so far.
I like a couple of these turns of phrase - I think the use of white-haired girl in the first helps to emphasise the slight remove from the collegemates, and the Orthrus lines I think do a bit of work in hammering in the new character introduction, but I agree on the second white-haired girl line (when you respond) - changed that to ‘If Alice/Adelais gets to stay quiet’. I’ve also reworded and added a line break to the warehouse scene, so thank you very much for calling out - super helpful.
The wild hairstyle line is as intended - the preceding line implies the Pactbinder’s hair is already a bit wild after the night’s exertions, so I think that works nicely.
Good catch! I di usually show visual feedback when somebody has an opinion on something, but now and then one of the characters with a better poker face doesn’t let anything slip that the Pactbinder can pick up on.
The ‘yes’ answer is the new one for violence familiarity!
I’ll have to pull a wait and see on the Pactbinder’s family story stuff, though I would say I don’t think the two discussions are incompatible - even if the Pactbinder doesn’t have a ‘family’ per se, they might have something they’ve seen as home for a long time..
Just adding the results of my latest playthrough to the pile, in case it’s useful to you. As usual the story is looking great. I was genuinely disappointed to realise I’d reached the end of the demo.
Thank you for sharing! And for letting me know that the story is still working for you - it’s always a great relief when I hear back from folks who liked the initial demo drop and they let me know that things are still working for them.
Hey, guys! I thought it would be fun now that I’m working through the start of C4 to share with you all an update on player metrics as of the end of C3. It’s interesting to see how different people are playing through the game.
Huge thanks to the ~40 odd people who have shared their end-C3 stat sheets with me, and a grateful thanks to those who share them in coming days - it’s super helpful to get a feel for how people are playing the game…
But without further ado - C3 Wrapped (spoilers for C3 of course!) in the dropdown…
Most Pactbinders didn’t immediately jump at the chance to murder their innocent doppelganger in cold blood. Perhaps there’s hope for them yet. Or maybe they’re just biding their time…
Explorers’ Society is far and away the most popular choice amongst Pactbinders in search of a good Society - in joint (but distant!) second we have the No Society pick and Duelling.
Silas and Marcus’ charms and the promise of political connections haven’t done much to tempt people to Skyskimmer Society - or perhaps the Pactbinder hasn’t recovered from their first experience on a flying boat!
The siren’s call of Spirit magic (or the charms of our not-Bird companion) appears to have seduced many a Pactbinder, though there’s healthy interest in all four of the Masteries, and Spirit didn’t quite seize a majority.
Like with Masteries, a fairly good mix across all ROs - though Adelais / Alice continues to be the most popular (especially impressive since she’s technically the hardest RO to dance with)
It gets worse - if you go to the library with Alice without dancing with her, that counts as a ‘Nobody’ in the above - so if anything this is understating the Alice count, though to be fair all of the ROs have a healthy amount of Pactbinders interested in them.
Fun fact - ~70% of Pactbinders know the white-haired girl as Alice, the remaining 30% know her as Adelais!
Other Interesting Stats
Live, Laugh, Love: Roughly 70% of Pactbinders have a meaningful amount of positive feeling towards their collegemates, and less than half of them are feeling tense or stressed about their situation and the lie they’re living so far! Long may the good times continue…
Hopefully you guys found this a little interesting - I know I’ve enjoyed collecting the data, and thanks to everyone for sharing!
‘Might makes right’ no more, it seems. I’m not particularly surprised by an intellect+finesse combo. I can’t speak for others, but I often associate finesse with a “smarter” fighting style. So I consider finesse to be complementary to any intellect/intelligence stat. And Mind magic also goes well with furthering my “Brain over Brawn” playthrough.
I like playing a Pactbinder being torn about the situation they find themselves in. The deceit they need to maintain in order to achieve the life they desire ironically making them feeling more miserable than ever. They find friendship and potential love, but they can’t fully embrace it, because it could all vanish once the truth comes out. Every day that passes causing exponential guilt and paranoia.
Needless to say, it will get way worse before it gets better. Hopefully Adelais/Alice can help them.
My main pactbinder is actually having a great time, because they have very few issues lying to the people they care about as they view most relationships as being largely transactional (this will probably change with time, as they do actually like the antioch crowd, not that they’d necessarily admit it to themselves). They’re a little messed up and have almost 0 moral compass (the only reason they’re not a murderer is that they were curious about taking blood from an already spilled wound, if that didn’t work the next pick would have been murder.) they do have a few principles e.g. they went to stand with layla at the start (though they probably rationalised that as investing in a potentially useful ally) +1 for the int/fin focus though, with enough points in charisma to keep suspicion nice and low.
Apologies for the double post, but if anyone here is at all familiar with pathfinder 1e, what witch patron would our friend in red be? I’m trying to make my pactbinder in pathfinder, I’ve settled on pact wizard as the class/archetype but I’m not sure what patron fits the entity best
Murderer?: false phantomOutcome: Lost / Drew Society: None mistsOutcome: 1 ChosenMastery: Life worldScore: 1 dormScore: 1 aScore: 4 tScore: 3
Other
-Wondering how deep your patron’s influence extends.
(Studied for exams instead of knife-shopping. Also tried to reinforce the barrier instead of raising morale, though I could have sworn I had more than 18 Charisma last time, but maybe I didn’t save stats for that particular playthrough.)
I ran into one looping issue during free time: Going to town let me choose 3 out of 4 options (I’m assuming speaking to Lizbet / the protestor are supposed to be exclusive of one another.) But then the entire “go to town” excursion was repeatable, allowing me to re-decide my reason for going, and then offering only the options to speak with Lizet and the protestor, both of which could be chosen again.
Misc. moment that stuck with me: It’s not “canon” for my MC but I really liked testing the Kingsgift options in the Life trial. I can’t even really explain how tempting that was, let alone why.
Finlay gets stabbed: I have to save him!
Having the option to get stabbed: I have to think about this. I mean, my bestie got stabbed and I can too! …Wait. That’s not a healthy mindset.
)
