Well, you see the latter was an accident while Vadis did it on purpose and also made the issue leading to the accident way worse. “Let’s blind our flier after she made a mistake flying.”
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Well we both know Vadis isn’t exactly a smart or reasonable man. I’ll say that it was maybe an emotional outburst which is understandable since a lot of people just died horribly, but beyond that, I’m certainly not justifying partially blinding someone who’d never seen combat before and will now only see half as much combat.
In conclusion, the next time I see him, he’s losing the hand he blinded her with.
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This is something I definitely want to revisit at some point and rework a few scenes. As the story went on, I started drifting away from the original personalities and leaning more into how the stat bars, so right now, that initial choice doesn’t have as much weight as I’d like it to. But that’s something I plan to fix later.
As for those moments that might feel out of characte, like a Broken Warden attacking Vadis, or a detached “weapon” wanting to kill the king, I chose to leave them open to all personalities. I could’ve locked some of them behind certain starting traits (for example, only letting the Arrogant Warden consider killing the king), but I wanted readers to have the freedom to let their Warden take drastic turns if they wish. In the story itself, I imagine those as fleeting, intrusive thoughts, like when you’re walking down the street and think, “What if I tripped that guy?” You’d never actually do it, but the thought just slips in. I imagine for the Warden, with their fractured mental state, that kind of thought surfaces more often, especially under stress or conflict.
The “not caring about the soldiers” part only appears if you act violently toward Vadis. I imagine that a warden that would attack Vadis like that while walking up to the palace of all places, with guards everywhere, would be a very emotional and brash warden. Driven by personal attachment to Ruby rather than by any logical or moral reasoning. So when writing that scene, I thought that someone like that wouldn’t really be thinking about the soldiers at that moment, and even if they were, they wouldn’t give Vadis the satisfaction of admitting it.
As for Ashen, by that point, the MC already knows Grafast is heavily involved in Laphis. There were soldiers from there in the parade beside Ashen, the High Priest tells the MC that Ashen arrived on a Grafast ship, and Ashen himself wears the crown that belonged to the King of Emberford.
Even as the MC begins to grow and discover self-worth beyond their duty as the Warden, Emberford remains deeply tied to them, regardless of the initial personality choice. It was their entire purpose, the sacred duty they were created for, the reason they existed at all. Only a few months have passed since they began living freely, so the city’s fate still weighs heavily on them. Maybe it’s guilt for their fallen “siblings,” sorrow for the innocents who died, or just the crushing failure of knowing that despite all their power, they couldn’t fulfill the one purpose they were made for.
So, taking all that into account, how deeply that city mattered to them, even if only on a subconscious level, I feel like they wouldn’t risk the lives of everyone now depending on them just to reach out to this traitor who’s sided with Grafast. Especially after witnessing how the experiments turned on each other during the Battle of Emberford. MC doesn’t have all the context that the reader does due to the different POV, but there will be options to talk to him during the battle, and I plan to add many different possible ends to it.
I mentioned it before but, right now the motivation for taking Laphis isn’t really vengeance. But I think I left a bit to be desired on this specific point. I’ll try reworking it for the next update.
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That last part makes more sense, though it might make sense to say in the narration that Warden may or may not be telling the truth there. That’s just my stance though.
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Yeah, I don’t think I mentioned that in the narration. I’ll probably add it later, maybe rework that part a bit. There are quite a few moments in the first chapter especially that I think could use a little rework, lol.
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Yess, I was actually reminded of that exact scene in some of the interactions with Arael (especially the mention of her resting her head on MC’s shoulder), so I’d say you nailed it! To be clear, when I mention rough edges I mean the kind of things that get ironed out in editing - some jumps in the flow of things, some awkward feeling choices, that kind of thing. The actual meat of your writing, the stuff that really matters, is very good (in my opinion of course)!
I was most impressed with how you jumped four months while still showing the progress of relationships. One of the most common things I see with time skips, and the main reason I usually dislike them, is that it feels like the interpersonal stories are either ‘frozen’ or skipped during the time jump. Either a relationship didn’t progress at all over those months, or it did in ways I don’t know.
Your recap of the time spent with Arael during the time skip was very well done. I got a sense of how that relationship progressed, why she and the MC got along well, how they interacted during that time, etc. I completely understood why she would drop everything and run off with the MC, which is a hard thing to convey as a brief recap, but you did it!
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There was one bit where I think the time skip actively works in the arc’s favor. Arael’s specifically, when you show up after several months of no contact. Her cold behavior actually caught me off guard because it’s only been a few seconds from the player’s perspective, and that’s a pretty good mirror for how the Warden seems to be feeling. Time flies and all.
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I found a consistency error: At the banquet, when the princess wants to talk to you, but you dismiss er, she leaves you without going to the balcony. Then at the next page you are standing at the balcony and discussing with Azgor if you should help her (even though she never made her proposal).
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Oh, you’re right. I’ll fix that, thanks for pointing it out
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Plan b for asserting control over the city if subtle politicking fails.
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I like it! Azgor would definitely approve, lol.
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But we don’t have an engine though, so we’re gonna have to improvise. I’m thinking we fly up and dangle people in the air then drop them if they disagree. Ooh, or we turn into a dragon, the team gets on our back, and sparta kicks dissenters to their deaths.
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And here I was just thinking the cliff near the temple.
“Why should I go along with this? It’s no concern of mine if they chose to honor me with a few Aurelian sacrifices.”
“We get to kill people if they disagree with us and I have some funny ideas.”
“… Ok, I’m in.”
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Absolutely amazing! Keep up the good work, I’m excited to read the final product when ever that might be.
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I believe it was mentioned that the kingdom aligned with the elves relocated their capital to the forest. Did they abandon/lose their old one or is it just not the capital anymore?
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They abandoned their original lands. Back when the Aurelian Empire still ruled, the central continent was divided into four kingdoms under its control: Emberford, Grafast, Vlorora, and Akastin. They were never friendly with each other, though.
When the Empire fell, the four kingdoms tried to negotiate, but it quickly became clear that no agreement could be reached. Akastin, being far weaker than the others, had no chance of holding its lands, or gaining anything from the wars that started breaking out. So when an envoy from the elves arrived, the king of Akastin agreed to abandon their ancestral lands and lead his people to settle at the edge of the Great Forest.
Before the Empire’s fall, the territories looked something like this:
After a few years of war, the borders eventually stabilized like this:
And currently: (Chapter 2 spoiler)
The old capital of Akastin was taken over by a noble house from Emberford. Speaking of which, I’m planning to remake this map entirely (or commission someone to do it), it was created way before I even made the story public, back when I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to make anything decent, lol. So it’s missing a lot of key details, like important locations, each of the noble houses, and I kind of want to rework a little the positioning of everything. Not sure yet.
Once I finish the current route for Chapter 2, I’ll be giving some attention to Ecbert’s and Theresa’s routes, which will lean much more into politics. Once we get there, I’ll be expanding the codex with entries about all the noble houses and their territories, since they’ll be much more important. So when I do that, the house that claimed Akastin’s old capital will be revealed.
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This game is soo good so far I just wanted to ask could you put a cheat code menu and just give us the option to have it on or off depending on the player
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I’m not against adding a cheat menu of sorts at some point, but so far there haven’t been many stat checks, most of them are tied to the MC’s personality or relationships. Because of that, I didn’t really think it would do much.
But was there any particular moment where you felt a cheat option would have been welcome?
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I was just asking for a cheat code menu if there will be stat checks so that can give us the real immersion of being overpowered
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Oh there will be some in the future. For all the MC’s power, there are still some things out there capable of challenging them.
But I’ll probably add some kind of cheat option later on then, for those who’d prefer not to worry about stats at all.
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