ARGH'S PROFILE

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 think you would like Craze's games, Hasvers. His battles tend to be very complex and strategic, and you rarely encounter the same enemy twice - in some games, every single battle is a unique enemy, even. You may like Obelisk: Devilkiller in particular, as though you have a healer, cooldown times mean she can't actually outheal most enemies, giving battles something of a time limit. It's impossible to revive fainted characters, as well. I'm not entirely sure if that's what you mean by "memory", but it seems to be similar.

This might seem like a minor point, but it's exactly why battles are designed the way they are. Having consumables, health that doesn't regenerate after every battle, and any variation of enemy placement (from optional encounters that guard treasure chests to random encounters), you can tell that the true value doesn't lie battle-to-battle. Dungeons are obstacle courses, and your ability to prepare for that gauntlet and still defeat the boss (albeit often relying on the linear system you've described above per battle) is the Big Picture.

That's what everyone always says, but I've never really seen this done effectively, because battles are so repetitive and healing magic/items are rarely scarce enough to cause actual worry. And, to be honest, I don't think I'd like such a "survival" game anyway, as it sounds very grueling and repetitive (as Hasvers pointed out). I did like gameplay in The Void though so who knows.

I just played this and it was lovely. Definitely the most inventive and thematically-appropriate rhetorical game I've seen recently. Some of the mechanics are a bit confusing and obtuse, especially since you're dumped into it with little explanation, but it was fun when I got the hang of it. I'm still not entirely certain how belief influence works, and what it means if you argue something you don't believe in? Being able to see numerical values for stats and belief values would be helpful. There were a few typos too.

(And bravo on dissing Kant, he's nuts.)

How many endings are there? I've gotten four (failure and the three exit topics). Is there one for turning "you will let me go" totally white?

I'm not really a review person I'm afraid. Most of the things I take interest in are specific elements rather than the big picture. If I wrote a review I'd have to cover stuff I don't have much to say on like art and presentation (it was good, by the way), and the whole thing would be pretty diluted. Maybe if I just talked about the specific points that interested me, but that would be a pretty weird review.

Besides, the developer's already seen my points so I don't really mind if they slip away. Although, one more thing:



Also, I'm kind of curious why a one-way intercom is such a difficult invention. Surely a two-way intercom would be the one that requires additional work? I guess you could just say that things work differently in that universe.

Yes, it does seem like he doesn't frequent this space. That's a shame, there's a lot of stuff I'd like to talk to him about. There's so much interesting stuff in this game.