Re: The Vale (final?) Demo
The worst part is, Shepherd starts out by saying "have a look around", then corrects himself, and Alex lets it pass. You take out "have a listen around" and it's still the same game, and the awkward joke isn't there. If Alex made fun of Shepherd for it, snapped at him, sounded awkward, then fine, keep it in, maybe it's an object lesson. But right now it's simply an awkward line with absolutely zero payoff, and with the added "benefit" that some blind folks - who are a large part of this game's target audience - are going to see it as problematic to one degree or another. As I said, to me it's not a dealbreaker, it's just cringy, and needlessly cringy at that.
Fantasy setting means that we don't have to think of this in terms of "medieval" or "olden days". This also means that we don't have to assume that the people in this fantasy setting are acting the same way folks a few hundred years ago on Earth would have done. Based on the magic demo, magic is not just a thing that happens to only Alex - others seem to know about and even understand it a bit - and that introduces an enormous wild card into everything.
One thing I want to go back to though? Sometimes I actually really, really liked. The bit where Shepherd's about to go sneaking off, and we see him get killed, but it turns out to have been a dream/vision/fear of Alex, and nothing more. I have always treated that scene like a premonition, and I think it presages potential magic later extremely well.
I definitely am not giving up on this game at all. I do think it has some issues, but I have to trust that Falling Squirrel is going to deal with those issues appropriately. If they do, great; look at how many bugs AHC had when it first came out, just as one example, and now it's virtually bug-free as far as I know. If they can do it, so can Falling Squirrel, if it comes down to that. If they don't, I'm sure there'll be more than enough folks to tell them so.
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