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(+1)

Hey, having played the demo, I have to say I love the concept for this game; the character designs are great, and the story has a lot of cool ideas behind it, so I’d really love to see it improve.

Sadly, I have one big criticism: I feel like the writer really needs the help of an editor. There’s a lot of confusing and downright weird word/sentence choices that make a lot of the dialogue painful to read. It almost reads like it’s been auto-translated from a foreign language, but it’s only available in English. Here’s a few bigger examples, although really the problem is everywhere:

  • “Forceful […] winds all-you-can-eat-buffets their faces”
  • “She checks her pocketwatch […] and finds that the cutoff comes at the apex of the next five minutes”
  • “I’ve got a lot of orders I need to keep tabs on. Some of them could certainly be torqued a damn syllable tighter”
  • “I want to ensure a full, hard, solo bunk”
  • and a lot of “she lithes away” “she elegances around” and other tortured constructions

If this was fixed, which I recognise is a very big ask, I would definitely think about buying this game; but sadly in it’s current state I don’t think I can recommend it.

“I want to ensure a full, hard, solo bunk” and “torqued a damn syllable tighter” is Backstroke of the West tier translation train wreck. Maybe I need to check out this demo.

I’m a native speaker, scene 1 is just quirky like that B)

Thanks for the feedback!

Just wanted to share another perspective. The writing is so cohesive everywhere else that I think the majority of players will understand that those are stylistic choices and not machine translation errors. The little idiosyncratic bits actually greatly enhanced my enjoyment of my time with the game so far (and I have a bit of a theory that they may also be subtle examples of ludonarrative harmony, but even if I'm wrong, my earlier point still stands). I can't speak on whether such  authorial flourishes that make this work stay with me more than if they had been written in a less unique manner are perhaps objectively the wrong writing choice, as I assume some writers would claim-all who choose to write are a very opinionated bunch by necessity, obviously- but I for one am very glad they're there and would mourn them if they're ever to be completely removed.

Anyways, thank you so much for what is clearly a great deal of hard work on this. I'm eager to see what fresh trauma you've in store for your players in future updates!

(+1)

Thanks!!!!!