It’s the stat screen, my bad. Thank you, it’s fixed now!
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Ohh I really like this. A lot of fun moments but the stats seem off haha. I play with someone charming who jokes a lot but my serious stat was 80% and playful 20%
And I’m not sure what influences the aloof and kind stat but I only have kind 35% even though I picked I saved that guy because it was the right thing to do and that I only steal to protect my sibling. Maybe it’s the sibling interactions? But I picked they all mostly like me too and hug our little bro. Although I also engage in pranks haha. Could be the indifference towards the father
How many siblings even are there and will we be seeing some that we interacted with? I liked the sister I forgot her name but she liked us back because of our chill attitude
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This is quite fun to read.
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Stats are inverted right now, will fix it later. But I’m glad you enjoyed it!
No defined number, keeping it vague for now. I do want to show other siblings, particularly if you picked the family motivation.
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I really enjoyed reading this, spotted some typos and a bug but I don’t know how to add images here (also mobile so if it’s the standard add code and upload it to an image hoster it would be a pain) so I @ed you on tumblr with images and descriptions.
I really enjoyed just the whole general vibes of the game, it made it a fun playthrough and I can’t wait to read more. Something I also found compelling was the main characters background and why they chose thievery. A lot of thief characters just have a very standard “poor family” which is interesting when executed well, but I enjoyed that you didn’t just take that standard route. I felt like my characters career choice and actions in her life made sense for her history which is really important to me when reading. Probably my favourite part of the demo.
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Thank you! I’ll be checking what you sent me on tumblr and fixing everything up properly. I’m glad that it feels like your characters cohesive. If you ever feel like you would like other choices in certain places to keep that up or like the text is undermining them, do tell!
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I can flirt with the detective?? I’m sold, peak game
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There’s a bug where if you choose to EMP the lights and sneak around to get the key as a phantom thief, the detective catches MC and the script treats it as if you chose to wear a disguise.
And this is just a little feedback you can ignore but things like;
”Regardless of where you make your home now,”
is unnecessary in my opinion. The IF writer “regardless of choice” right after choice seems to me a blunder IF writers often make that breaks reader immersion. Oftentimes you can just delete it and the sentence will flow just fine.
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Just finished reading the update. I love how the MC has a fully actualised and interesting family, and that it doesn’t pull its punches on the background just because they were a minor. There’s also a campy comic book style to the world balanced with a more grounded narrative that I love. Hope to see more!
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Oh, nice catch! The detective originally only caught you during the disguise choice, but I thought it would be cool to make that happen while trying to sneak too. Seems I missed some of the merger’s awkwardness. Will fix that later, thank you.
And I definitely get what you are saying about the “regardless“ thing, I have felt that way myself about other IFs. and literally thought about that while writing this bit, yet for some reason never changed it. Probably because it was a late addition, since I was hesitating whether if even making the current hideout a choice would be worthwhile. It’s changed and should flow better. Thanks again for the feedback, it’s very much wanted.
Glad to hear you are enjoying the style!
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This was so fun, I really enjoyed this so far! Especially the light-hearted and irreverent comedic tone throughout & MC’s cool gadgets. I liked how the name options reference different famous thieves (I had to go with Selina for mine 
). Romance-wise I’ll definitely wait to see what the other ROs are like, but I do love a detective/criminal cat and mouse dynamic <3. And I’m looking forward to seeing what’s up with the (now billionaire?) brother 🕵🏾♀️
I don’t think the heist was too difficult and the delay mechanic made sense to me. I liked the variation that it added, weighing which options would be worth a potential delay. I tried a few different options and I liked that some of the choices had different outcomes: stealing extra, completely avoiding the guards seeing you, getting away with the painting, etc.
The only part I was confused about is that it doesn’t seem like there’s a difference in outcome based on how the MC nicks the card. One of the options seemed high risk (using the disguise to actually talk face to face with the detective, and even leading them to MC’s escape plan (the roof) lol), but the other options still lead to the same outcome. I get that the scene where MC is confronted by the detective & Go-Gal is necessary, but maybe there could be a slight variation still?
If possible, I’d love to have more control over/options for the MC’s outfit. The “gentleperson” thief sounded gender neutral or like we’d have options, but the way the outfit is described (top hat & tailcoat) sounds like it’s for a masculine presenting gentleman thief. I’d love some more feminine options!
I was wondering about this, because I chose for my MC to kiss Go-Gal. But in my mind they were just doing it as a manipulation tactic to enact their escape plan (and after seeing their background later on, I feel like treating physical attraction/sex very casually makes even more sense). But it wasn’t clear to me in the narration whether choosing that option automatically meant my MC was genuinely into/romancing Go-Gal?
Also I found a pronoun error in the news article:
(My MC is a woman using she/her pronouns. Also I forgot to highlight it, but I feel like the detective’s pronouns could be used in this paragraph too?)
And this isn’t an “error”, but there were a few places in the article where the MC’s pronouns defaulted to they/them, but I think their set pronouns could be used instead to make it feel more like it’s about them specifically (if that makes sense):
(Although I’m just now realising that pronouns are used quite a lot in the paragraph above, maybe it could be varied a bit with the phantom thief/[thief title]/etc.?)
(I also highlighted in pink where the detective’s pronouns could be used too).
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This is awesome, I’ve been itching for more criminal WIPs! Looking forward to more content!
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Happy to hear you enjoyed it and the little references!
About the card stealing part. The only change there that I can think of, is actually the very start of the next scene to reflect better the urgency a caught MC would be feeling. But otherwise I’m not too sure what else I could change? I get the want for variation, but I also don’t want to overcomplicate what is supposed to be the initial tutorial-like heist. I’m open to suggestions on what exactly to add or change if you have any, though.
Now, the outfit is something that I’ve been meaning to get to. I do want to offer some choices in the framework of what vibe each archetype is supposed to be. For the moment I’d just been imagining gentlewoman thieves just looked like Zatanna. It kind of makes sense with how I’ve been playing up the showmanship of that archetype. But I’ll get to that as I also need to better define in-world how the player is masking their identity.
The narration not reflecting a utilitarian MC when kissing Go-Gal is for sure an oversight. I’ll take another look, thank you!
I’ll do another pass at the newspaper article. I don’t like how it came out at all to be honest. Between juggling the permutations of the heist, alongside the pronouns, and trying to get my idea of a 20s newscast in that section across, I feel like I missed the mark on all accounts. I might just re-write it completely.
Thank you again for the thoughts and interest!
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