if you proceed with slum exploration and following strange figure you will meet the evil priest earlier than later and beside you your sister will also hexed by him if you meet him at the slum, later on you will meet him and he only hexed your MC
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Thanks for the compliment and the typo/grammar fixes!!! 
I see what you mean there! There were quite a lot of variables in those slums (lol) so itâs entirely possible that some scenes donât flow well together. If you have time, could you please point out exactly which part/parts were where you felt like something weird was going on? If you decide to lose your sister, she wonât be there by that point. If you didnât ditch her and sheâs there in that scene, then the code is at least correct 
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Iâd say this choice is where it felt a little off for my character.
Quote
Come on, itâs gonna be fine," you shake your head at your sister. âItâs just a poor neighborhood.â
âYes,â she says slowly. âAnd I really donât want to wander around a poor neighborhood, Seti. Iâve been robbed once today. That was more than enough, you know.â
You just wave at her. âItâs gonna be fine, Pihu. Come on, the guardhouse is that way!â
You confidently continue on the road, heedless of the obvious signs of poverty around you, and lead an increasingly nervous Petepihu deeper into the line of dirt huts.
Behind the half-broken wall of a hurriedly patched up clay house, you see a colorful piece of fabric and the edge of a fur cape.
Now this wouldnât be so surprising if you were in the royal palace, but alas, you clearly arenât. The average worker cannot afford dyed fabric, and the privilege of wearing animal hides is usually reserved for priests. Hell, the average worker sometimes cannot even afford to wear clothes at all. Or maybe they choose not to. You arenât quite familiar with the thought process of the working classes.
Before you can make sure that your eyes arenât deceiving you, the thing vanishes behind the corner, out of sight.
âSeti? What are we waiting for? Are you taking me to the guardhouse or not?â you hear your sisterâs impatient voice next to you.
Well, you did promise her that you would take her there, although if you wanted, you could try to convince her to first help you investigate this strange appearance.
#You want to investigate that fabric. Seeing a high ranking priest is strange in this part of town and you want to know whatâs going on.
#Nope! You are so out of here!
Your self-awereness still works enough to know that this turn wasnât among your brightest ideas. You have no idea what a high priest might be doing in these parts of town, but honestly, you donât give a single fuck. Your philosophy is, first and foremost, better be ignorant than dead, so you turn tail and go in the exact opposite direction, because you are not a fool looking for trouble.
âCome on, weâre leaving,â you declare as you grab Pihuâs arm and start pulling her with you.
âBut you said this was a shortcut to the-â she starts, utterly confused by your sudden change of heart, but you interrupt:
âYes, I just remembered that I know an even shorter cut.â
My thoughts
Based on previous choices/text it seemed like my char knew where he was going, saying he was going to take her through âthe back alleysâ and preparing for a âstroll through the slumsâ, and I chose âCome on, this is just a poor neighborhood! Thereâs nothing to be afraid of.â. He felt confident enough to take this shortcut, but not necessarily confident enough to stick his nose in whatever business is going on. But also the priest hasnât really done anything threatening, so I thought when choosing âYou are so out of hereâ it just meant I would turn a blind eye and continue on past the alley. The follow-up felt like a bit of an escalation (for how I was playing my char specifically. I could see it working for other chars) thinking I would end up dead cause I saw someone wearing nice clothes (also, I just noticed the typo in self-awareness there). Plus the last sentence I quoted definitely reads as insincere to me, which is what made me think it was for the âtry to lose herâ path, but I can also see it working for an MC who got spooked and changed their mind and is trying to save face.
BUT, on review I could also see this being a case of you giving the MC some set personality where even if they were confident they got spooked and decided to leave. It just seemed a little inconsistent of the MC on my first read.
Sorry that got kinda long, hopefully I conveyed my thoughts well enough and you found it useful. If there was a 3rd choice at this passage that was basically âNone of my business, Iâm on my wayâ I think the story could end up in the same place as the âNope!â option since we could still get separated from our sister immediately after, while avoiding the character inconsistency I felt.
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Thanks, thatâs what I was gonna ask, if you want maybe a third neutral option there 
I can certainly do that.
I also modified the description leading up to that choice, now it reads like this:
â${name}? What are we waiting for? Are you taking me to the guardhouse or not?â you hear your sisterâs impatient voice next to you.
Well, you did promise her that you would take her there, although wandering around this part of town feels like an increasingly bad idea by the minute. Youâre starting to get a gut-feeling that maybe you should get the fuck out of here.
Then again, if you arenât afraid of possible robberies and whatnot, you could try to convince your sister to help you investigate this stranger. "
And then choice
#go investigate
#get the f out
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I like the new description, setting up the gut feeling and clarifying the two choices. I think that works for me.
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Thatâs a joke. I meant my MC might say âcan I get that permission in writing?â which isnât something his father would do, because it would obviously be exploited to escape the royal compound. 
Calling it cheating is what is judgy about it. If they did not decide âas a coupleâ to agree to see others while still married, then that could be called cheating. However, if they did discuss it, and both agreed, then the only ones who would actually call it cheating are the rumor-mongers themselves. The ones spreading the gossip are paying no respect to this couple who are clearly not straight, or desiring to continue to pretending at it. Thatâs where I was coming from with that, but if youâre still confused; the exact term youâll want to look up is Lavender Wedding.
Much better, but it would still be funny to shrug at the guards at the gate. The scene-to-scene transition just felt like a non sequitur, which had more than a little whiplash from my perspective. Not the thematic story-telling kind, either. It felt unfinished, which is the main reason I wanted to comment on it.
Great! If you have any more concerns somewhere, please point it out And thanks for the help with the typos and grammar
I established the brother as a bit of an a-hole I think. It would be more out of character for the MC to just assume, without knowing, that he and his wife have a mutual understanding and agreement about this. At no point is the MC judgmental about it, itâs just what theyâve heard, and frankly, what they would expect from the brother because heâs that type of person. You, as a reader, can have a different opinion, obviously. But thatâs not going to appear in the text.
Well, this is how I wanted to write it Thanks for the feedback but I donât want to change that scene any more
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NEW UPDATE
The entire child of the vizier origin is out!
Whatâs new in the demo:
- around an extra 17k words
- every choice is now available on the noble origin
- I also put an extra flirting opportunity with Qenna and Zaia somewhere in the text
I didnât want to do it in chapter 1 but I couldnât resist lol. If you donât find it, no worries, itâs not gonna count in their romance and youâll have plenty more options in later chapters - I edited some parts of the chapter 2 scene for the noble character to make it a bit more obvious for why your high-class noble feels starstruck in a certain characterâs presence
- fixed lots of grammar mistakes and typos (thank you guys for the help with that!)
- edited some scenes in the beginning where you and your sister wander around the slums to make it more in-character for every personality
- I made 2 achievements for a noble character (thief has 2 as well)
The variations in the code and the text for the noble origin are much more extensive than for the thief. So if you see any continuity errors, weird paragraphs, error messages, bugs, or anything that doesnât make sense, please point it out to me!
Edit: there was an error that the quicktest kept getting stuck at but I fixed it It didnât throw back any other error messages, but still, continuity errors and coding errors are always bound to happen so if you run into anything weird, let me know.
The next step in development will be the priest origin. That one will be a lot more straightforward branching-wise, so Iâm planning to put more personality choices there and maybe more options to flirt with some ROs
32 Likes
Me upon meeting a goose: I wonder how long until this goose attacks me. Perfect scene 
I will kill for these children. Surely daddy dearest wonât mind when I bring home 4 orphans⌠right?
Oh no. I embarrassed myself in front of Qenna on our first date. Then he still bought me another beer, lol. Qenna says the noble can party sloppy style.
Typos/Comments
âThe drumbeat echoes over the streets, as if the heart ot ThebesâŚâ
of
âŚ
âThere is only four of them anyway, and they are all tiny.â
are
âŚ
âAwfully rude of you to to get shitfaced without your bodyguards, no?â
repeated âtoâ
âŚ
âYou smile at him as you take his hand on your own.â
in
âŚ
âYou imagine there must be a reason why your father never wanted to introduce him to you. Now that you two has metââŚ
have
âŚ
"The sky is already dark outside and you are about to go to bed when there is yet another knock on your door.
Arenât you terribly popular today?
âSeti, itâs me, your father,â you hear his voice again.
In the route I took this is the first time someone is knocking on my door (well, aside from the maid I guess). Is the noble counting the maid here? I figured being served food would be kind of routine for the noble/they wouldnât count it towards being âpopularâ.
âŚ
âA pleasure to meet you all, but I still have no idea what Iâm doing here,â you say with a confident - albeit quite impatient - smile.
For this choice, technically my noble has previously met 2/3 of the people in the room (Qenna today, Narmer 5 years ago).
That goose has sinister energy, you have to admit.
Eeeeeehhhhh
I was wondering about if meeting them will have further consequences later, like when you come back from the quest and if you get a happy ending, you might be able to look them up/move them to the palace/give them jobs or whatever. I didnât put a permanent variable for it, but I might later. Dunno yet.
Qenna knows all too well the intricacies of alcohol consumption. But if you told him it was a date, he might choke to death 
Thanks for the typo fixes again Iâll fix the knocking part, although I think the âawfully popularâ part here refers to the noble meeting so many people that day who otherwise have not much interest in them (especially the father, I mean he generally speaks to his kid once a week at most). Hm, maybe Iâll switch up the âArenât you terribly popular today?â and the âSeti, itâs me, your fatherâ to make it more clear.
Boom:
The sky is already dark outside and you are about to go to bed when there is
*if tothecity = false
yet another
*if tothecity = true
a
knock on your door.
"${name}, it's me, your father," you hear his voice again.
Aren't you terribly popular today?
âA pleasure to meet you all here, but I still donât understand why you wanted to meet me,â you say with a confident - albeit quite impatient - smile.
Howâs this? I made it conditional to the noble character. The thief would still get the original one.
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I love how diverse the choices are. This is massive! Big question though, how do we recognize Narmer?? Iâm playing as a noble, but nothing appears.
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Ohhh, Iâm looking forward to the other origin stories and the fighting lessons.
Will you MC meet the characters of the other possible origin routes at some point? That would be kind of an interesting concept, but I totally get, if it will not happen.
I just realized that one of the origin options is the captain of the guard which you met in both origin stories already. Nice! Iâm looking forward to see the story from their eyes.
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Thanks for the lovely messages! ^^
Thatâs a bit of a joke option once you realize what it means lol. Here is a walkthrough: You need to meet up with your sister in the very beginning, then investigate the fabric, then after meeting Qenna you have to go back to the palace, when meeting your father you choose âoooh you have urgent business elsewhereâ, then go to the library. You will get an achievement there, and thatâs how you run into Narmer by accident which will then enable the âof course you recognize himâ option later on
Youâre right, the captain of the Theban guard is one of them Additionally, if you play the noble, you can briefly meet Sesi, you can see the captain, plus you can see the priest MC from a distance.
On the thief origin, you interact with the captain.
On the priest origin, you will meet the noble.
On the captain origin, you will see the noble and you will interact a lot with the thief.
These last two are still up to change because I make a lot of in-the-moment decisions during writing.
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Cute⌠I will never forget my best fliend 
Ohh, I see!
Hmm, I think you need to break up âa pleasure to meet youâ or it still reads to me like a first meeting. If I may:
âItâs a pleasure to meet with you here, but I still donât understand why you wanted to see me,â
And bonus typos I found reading scene variations:
Summary
âA few of them bump into you, then you accidentally thread on some toes,ââŚ
tread
âŚ
âYou step to the left to get around but your feet catches on something and you almost barrel straight into the stranger.â
foot catches
âŚ
âMy guard captain said there was sime kind of attack?â you frown.
some
âŚ
âMaybe no, but I can at least look, yeah?â
not (unless this is supposed to be part of the commoner accent)
âŚ
ââŚthe little girls reach you and you get a handful of grain in your face. Some even get into your mouthâŚâ
gets
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Works for me 
Iâll put all the changes in the next update (next week Friday I think), including the typo fixes. If you see anything else, let me know
Okay now I must do it. You will meet your best fliend in the end.
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I HAVE A QUESTION FOR EVERYONE! Do you want a codex in the Stats page about the unknown Egyptian words? Maybe maps and stuff too? There arenât many expressions like that in the text, but people keep asking me what a senet is, so I was wondering if it would be useful to have a codex? Maybe? I donât know, I generally donât read those things in games and either just roll with it or quickly Google it But I can do a codex if you want it.
10 Likes
Maybe once youâve finished up all the groundwork you want to do for this early draft of the demo first? Things like codices, and glossaries are great for explaining uncommon terms, or even fantasy words the author completely made up, so Iâm all for it when the time comes to add it. But in the meanwhile, people could stand to learn that internet search engines arenât some judge-y enemy when trying to look up the definitions for assorted real words theyâve never heard/read before. Just donât ask how to make cookies while the âwarâ is still ongoing.
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I mean, I agree, Google is your friend lol. But Iâm asking it now because I know myself and if I donât do it now, Iâm not gonna come back later to comb through the text for foreign words. Same reason Iâm writing the origin stories first and not proceed with chapter 2 because I know that if I donât do it right now, itâs gonna be a lot harder later.
Although⌠foreign words aside, maps would still be useful because thatâs not something you can generally find through a quick search (or at least not age-accurate ones). I had to make one for myself by piecing together several other maps and itâs still not accurate. It can also be confusing when I write âdown in Memphisâ, which means âdownriverâ but actually Memphis is in the North. So, yeah, thatâs what I was thinking to explain over there.
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Personally, Iâm all for both, especially the codex/glossary. I know I can google things, but really, if Iâm playing the game, Iâm just not going to. Iâm just not going to minimize the game every time I come across something I canât quite figure out from context to look it up. I just know I wonât. Iâll want to keep playing.
Plus, if people arenât interested in them, they can just ignore that page on the stats.
That said, itâs extra work, so I leave it to you to know if itâs too much work or too distracting. Iâd never encourage anything that will in any way be an obstacle to finishing the game. You know your process best. (I, for instance, love side stories, but I refuse to write them for my project because Iâll get too distracted by them, use up all my creative juices, and just not get as far along in my WiP, but thatâs me.)
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âDownriver in Memphisâ?