Exeunt Omnes

author=Hasvers
Immanuel Kant is a very influential German thinker whose most important writings are impossible to read without becoming either mad or a philosopher :P

Or both, am I right?

Edit: Oh, by the way, I played the game for a bit. It seemed really deep and complex, requiring intricate strategy. It was a really innovative and it had really good art. But I found myself rather confused by the gameplay mechanics. Even though I read the rules, I still couldn't get my head around how they worked. I liked the idea of conversations being like literal trees in a 2D space (I've actually imagined something similar myself), but I found it hard to get my head around things like where the line of sight ended, and what arguments mean, and what the connections between the nodes meant. One possible reason for this is that I didn't play it for very long, and I probably would have got my head around it if I did. In fact, I might play it right now and try and figure it out again.

Edit #2: Play it real soon I mean. Because, you know, I only have access to a Mac right now. Ya. Sux.

Nah, it doesn't matter! I still enjoyed the game despite that.

Altough, I didn't found the Kant reference... I don't even know what Kant is... :(

I just played the game and it was really great! I got three of the endings( the bad one, the high empathy one, and the high face one) and I just now find out about the Logician ending, so now, I have another reason to keep playing it!

Altough, when I tried to get the low territory ending, once I selected the exit node, the game shutdown itself. Do you know why this might be happening?

And yes the final ending is for turning "You will let me go" at least 2/3 white, which requires a bit of the three branches.

Ah, yes, I saw your tutorial post and tried doing that, but for the life of me I just couldn't do it. I could get it about halfway white, but no more. Ironically, despite being the most logical, "The world needs me" seems like a route to avoid entirely, since Hero totally disbelieves it, putting you at a disadvantage from the start. Walkthrough would be good, belief changes are still kinda confusing due to the lack of feedback, as you said.

Claiming a statement that is mostly red for you simply translates to saying the opposite

But does that have any mechanical impact, or is it just for flavor?

Anyway, some thoughts on the gameplay after watching my sister play: I feel like the topical radius mechanic is too limiting. I think I know why you did it - realism? Like, conversations have to logically flow from one point to the next. (And also probably because it would be too easy otherwise.) But because you can only use arguments once, it's very easy to move yourself away from an ending node by mistake and be unable to get back, especially if you reach the logical end of a route (like "what comes after this?" for Valley of Tears) but don't quite meet the stat requirements for whatever reason. I think it should be possible to freely move the topic zone as an independent action, maybe costing time, but it should be possible. It even has grounding in realism - it's entirely possible to say "Okay, let's go back to , I want to say something more." Awkward, but possible.

Furthermore, I'm not entirely clear on the meaningful difference between stats, and territory seems worthless if you aren't going for the final ending. They all increase "persuasiveness", as in belief change strength, yes? But empathy and face have other advantages (topical zone, time) whereas territory does not.

And, though you're probably aware of this, I think the argumentation mechanic would work better if I knew the characters better. At the start of the game, Villain supposedly knows Hero well, but she's a blank slate to me. I have no way of intuiting which arguments will convince her and which ones she'll reject. Case in point - I went for "The world needs me" as my opening argument on my first run, because the other two were personal and, since I didn't know Hero at all, those could backfire. But of course "The world needs me" is the worst argument to make because she totally disbelieves it, as opposed to the others where she can be mostly convinced.

This was very enjoyable, though, and I'm looking forward to larger game using this mechanic.

I'm not that good at reviews, unfortunately...

But I have to say, I really enjoyed this game! Quite the unique approach to game play. Also, starting the game's story where most stories end made this all the more interesting.

You know, compared to other ethics, Kant's is fairly solid. Don't know why everyone hates him that much.
But it's a general fault that one takes a single thought and tries to make it his only guideline.

I like the art and the premise of this game. I'll give this a shot sometime.