I’m pretty much always in the mood for fantasy so I was immediately into the concept and I enjoyed what you’ve made so far.
Made some notes as I went along.
So I checked out the stats screen first (a habit, so I know kind of what the game will be looking at and expecting from me). I went through all the lore pages, turned on the stat check option, and hit show health as numbers. Then when I tried to go back to the game, I got an infinite load bug. Not sure which thing caused that. I restarted and tried some trouble shooting: stats page > return to game 
; stats page > all lore pages > return to stats > return to game ; stats page > stat check option > return to game ; and finally, stats page > health as numbers > return to game . So I tried going back, doing it all at once again, and the infinite reload did not repeat. Could have been a weird blip in my internet? Could have been an update you did at the time I was looking at it? Could have been alien interreference? Idk. It might never happen again, but to be safe, I wanted to tell you about it.
It’s your story, so it’s obviously your discretion. However, there’s a reason so many writers (and readers) advise against opening the story with a dream. It seems to me that your goal with the opener was to give the reader a sense of the general area and their position within it as well as to cultivate a little dread for some upcoming plot point. I think there are better ways to do that than the dream sequence (especially since you’ve actually included a map in your stats screen). I’m not saying not to include dreams at all, especially if dreaming itself is going to be relevant, but as an opener, it really didn’t work for me. But also: my favorite book of all time opens with the main character waking up, so clearly it can work. If you want it that way and that’s your vision, keep it but find a cleaner way to execute it.
I like that I got the opportunity to learn a little about the professions before I had to pick one for certain. That’s always a nice and appreciated touch.
Typo: [Life in the hamlets tend to be simple like that.] tends
I hate this phrase but sometimes it has its uses: show, don’t tell. That is not always useful or applicable but I think the intro could do with a little more of it. There are things you need to tell, and that’s fine, but there are other things you can show and that’d be more impactful. Don’t tell me kids work, show me kids working as I go through the day. Don’t tell me life is hard and simple, show me people living hard and simple lives as I walk through the village.
In the section where you talk about the mother having a different surname because of her family, you call her Faith Potions, the father’s surname. In the next section, when she asks how I am, you call her Faith Tanner. Whatever we call her, there are some very interesting questions and implications about the culture you’ve created here and I’m interested to see how you develop those details.
Tense issue: [Jake Potions was a short, slender man with thinning hair that wore glasses of polished lens—a rare commodity in the village—with a kind demeanor and easy smile. He was near the grinders, holding a small crystal in a spheroid shape that he seemed to have been polishing.] Thus far you’ve been using present tense, so you’d want to stick with “Jake Potions is a short…” and “He is near the grinders…”
That page ^ beginning with “You leave your family’s house…” is probably my favorite bit of prose so far. It’s clean, it’s clear, it flows well, the sentences are well constructed. It still has the fantasy vibe I think you’re going for in the opening pages, but it works and reads better.
[“We’re out of elfsbark to act as a heat storage,” Jake says.] I like that you include the utility of the item, but I think it would be better as part of the narrative rather than as part of Jake’s dialogue. Presumably a person who has been doing this with their father for about 6 years would know why and how to use something that seems pretty crucial to the process and Jake wouldn’t need to explain.
Tense issue: [It’s not unusual for your father to ask you to pick something up with the other families, but that’s just a necessary evil part of the job. The village healer had a cabin that was about a mile north of the village proper, by a small river that flowed into the Nameless Bay where she could grow her herbs without interference. // You wrinkle your nose a bit. Old Bryn was as wise as she was cranky, prone to yelling at people passing by for disturbing the cabin’s peace and quiet, but there was nothing for it. Somebody had to pick up the elfsbark and your father was polishing the spheroid. Besides, it’s likely he had better practice with the tools than you did.] Unless Bryn’s dead and the river is dried up, these need to be in present tense. Also I think it’s more than “likely” Dad has more practice with the tools since, presumably, he’s been doing this most of his life and is the one who taught us.
Tense issues: [They weren’t thick with bushes…]//[The cabin was right by a stream flowing into the Nameless Bay. It wasn’t large—about four rooms that you could count—but it was sturdy, built well with old oak. The front yard had a little fence, as small as three inches tall, with a variety of herbs growing there, most of which you couldn’t recognize.] Might also consider removing “that you could count” or changing it to something less familiar like “that you’re aware of.”
So at this point, there are just a ton of tense shifts. You started with present tense, so I assumed that’s what you wanted to use but the amount of shifts has me uncertain. Rather than mark them all individually here, I’m just going to encourage you to be certain you know which one you want and do a full pass specifically for tense consistency.
[“It’s a remote, peaceful place that follows a very steady rhythm, and when things break that rhythm, they simply stand out.”] Moments like this one are good examples of where more “showing” earlier on will lead to greater impact later. Since I’ve started the story, I’ve had a probably prophetic dream, eaten breakfast, and come almost straight here. I had a few interactions along the way, yes, but none that really give me much meat. Ella talking about people being careless and giving the healers more work is the most noteworthy thing I’ve learned about the day to day of the village. It would be great to have really seen some of that remote, peaceful, steady vibe so this feels impactful rather than you have to tell me it’s impactful.
I can tell that you put effort into making sure the jobs had distinct content! That’s great!
Stats page says MC is 18. I get that’s young, but for a world that seems to require children to start becoming productive members of society around 12, there are some things that strike me as… odd? Mom making you breakfast and ensuring you wake up on time, parents giving you (or not) permission to go places, having parents assign you chores and a chore day as opposed to you just simply taking responsibility to assist maintaining the home in which you still live, parents giving you food to take camping (as opposed to you hunting or foraging when camping is connected to the survival skill/the implication that you’re mature enough to survive on your own in the wilderness but not mature enough to be able to pack food for/by yourself). It just feels a little internally inconsistent and it’s hard to really understand why the world seems to work in ways that feel counter to what’s established by the text.
When I go back to get Ella with Agrien, a lot of the description of him, Old Bryn, and the cabin is repeated, some of it word for word. I think this is because of the way you’ve probably set up the optional order of friend pick ups and the considerations of who is present but you should also set up a variable for if my job has already introduced me to the character/place (or if you have a variable for that, ensure it’s working as intended).
Some things have been difficult to discern with regard to stats. Like which stat is about to be tested or which stat is relevant (and there seems to be overlap in the stats as well). Like when talking to Bryn, I wouldn’t have assumed lying to her was being “subtle.” Or when saying the gods shouldn’t have first initiated violence, there’s a prideful increase that I never would have guessed. When fighting the bear, I assumed the feint would be grace but it was subtlety? Even with the show stat gains and checks on, it only shows me that information after I’ve made a selection, which kind of makes the option no more useful than code-diving.
When Faith says it’s bad luck to talk about the patrons, she’s called Fate.
Typo: [the man could make into pasted for a variety of maladies] pastes
[“And kick Alyssa Woodcutter’s ass,” Jake adds,] Hell yeah, dad!
Damn that was a good character death. I had time to get attached (and I did), it was sudden and well executed (executed, ha), and it contributed to the story and the setting. Nice!
Overall, I’d say what needs the most work is tense consistency and stats. They have so much overlap that it’s difficult to know which will be used/increased and the option to show that information isn’t helpful in that regard since you get the information after the fact. I did enjoy it a lot though! I liked the parents a ton, Agrien and Ella are great (and what a cute nickname!), and I think you did a great job integrating the profession into the narrative. I’m glad you shared what you’ve been working on and I wish you good luck with it! It has a lot of potential!
