Gameplay(rant): This part is interesting because I don't play as much RPG makers as I'm used to so I got kinda rusty at times. The map in the stronghold section is pretty straightfoward once you fully navigated the whole section with the clift section acting as a shortcut with the rope from the cabin. As for me I took longer to fully etch the layout into my brain, often backtracking when I reached a dead end that I thought would reach to an open section. Nothing on the map design at all, just my general experience. I feel for a section this walking-intensive you could look into diagonal movements, it will be more interactive that way and you don't have to zigzag around and spamming the keys as much, moving smoother and faster, though it may have some problems with transparent tiles so I guess that would be a hassle. At first, I didn't know how to gauge the enemies' strength so I just jinxed them most of the time and avoid confrontations. There’s no down side to fleeing away, it’s always a 100% guarantee and the first time I encountered a squad of those spectral things, the fight set back my HP a significant amount without any items or discernable gains. I concluded that any further fight will only be undesirable since there isn’t a motive to do so at the moment. I didn’t know that choosing to rest by the horse will give you free heal and mana so I operated on limited resources act accordingly since. With the speed of not having to kill any enemies on the way, I made my way to the Cliffside where the wolf resides and choosen the wrong dialogue option, triggering the boss fight. I'm forced to take on what's essentially a hidden boss with nothing inside my inventory and no LVL-up buffs from killing enemies. I died first try. The subsequent death by the wolf sent me back all the way to my first saving point, which is at the very beginning (I feel no danger to save until then). After knowing the game has the ability to pull the same shit again and force me to retrace 15 minutes of progress at any time, I really begin to treat this like a survival strategy game, using my dexterity and carpal tunnels to navigate around enemies with utmost efficency, gathering everything I can possibly learn, knowledge is key I gathered. I feel like a hunter being hunted. My ears hyper concentrate. My eyes scanning horizons. Palms sweating. Lungs exchanging oxygen. Feets closed. Cheeks tightening in anticipation. In other words, I'm locked in. My delusion turns out to be an utter time waster as I could've just fought monsters along the way and regenerate health by resting. I came around it at one point that resting heals you and begin to lighten my load off a little, realizing how stupid I was for not figuring it out sooner. It did make intuitive sense now that I think about it, regardless I've already wasted a decent chunk of my minutes into this game now and I had just begun to realize the correct way of playing. For the record while playing this section, although there's a sense of frustration building inside, I mostly ignored the feeling and zen to the music, making the tomfoolery less agitating. Still, I don't know how long the demo would be so I conserve my heals and crystals for future uses, this is how I unknowingly engaged in hoarder mentality, however, this comes to intergral a clutch in the future. As I trek through the forest, I choose to only heal HP and MN by resting for free in the beginning section, never to use items, thus adding more minutes to my time wasted. I begin to be more lax and clear enemies to farm exp and money, thinking it as a limited resource, still in the survival mindset. Once I get the gist of it, I reach the cliff section through the open plains and got bodied by the wolf, again. Before my experience with the first demon boss however, I managed to slain the boar miniboss and reach the underground shelter. This is where you would find the unholy bible and return to talk to the horse, but in my first play through I couldn't see the book since it is the same color as the desk it's on and to top it off, I didn't make an effort to search every event tiles inside the shelter either, as the previous searched sections don't bring any items once interacted. Face with this problem of a dead end under the shelter, I decided I must kill the wolf in the cliffside to progress the game. I managed to do it after two tries, as I already killed the boar miniboss and get the meat stick for the big dog. I thought I tamed(?) the wolf? But it doesn't appear in my party as a companion and I thought the game is bugged somehow, turns out the wolf 'becomes' an ability instead as it is actually a spirit(?) and a weak ability at that. The damage it can do is 600-700 top, which sounds like a lot but the MN cost is the same as my other ability (Biden Blast) which is 200. For comparison my charged attack ability deal 400-600 with just 50 MN. Using two charged attacks on the same enemy desal the amount of damage that exceeds the what the special summoning attacks can do, yes both of them, which doesn't match the effort I pour into defeating the wolf. I don’t know if this is a conscious decision or not, it just looks like a red herring for me, or this is another instance of me not grasping how such a spell would be useful, perhaps for killing enemies quicker? But it would require extra turns to rejuvenate lost MN points expended. Back to the gameplay, without knowing the existence of the book, I spend the next 30 minutes or so finding every crook and crannies in the forest, clearing every zone as I go, thinking I must kill everything to trigger an event. After a while of no progress it's starting to get frustrating so I return to the shelter and finally found the book again. This is mostly on me, I'm pretty rusty after all but the fact that you couldn't see the book clearly could be frustrating for some players. Making the book more visible, perhaps upping the saturation wouldn't hurt that much. After that embarrassing sequence of poor decisions making I get jumped by the demon after returning to the horse and choosing to falter back instead of blocking the attack, ending my play through and forced to return to a save 20 minutes ago, thus doing it over again. My experience has taught me that running away is the right solution. So when I witness the very dismantling of my ideology, is as if it was a personal attack on me, driven with a sense of injustice my spite kicks in and I prepares to send the demon home. I saved near the horse this time and begin to strategize my ways around the demon boss. It's nothing like I've ever seen before. The enemy deals devastating blows that I thought was impossible compared to the boar mini boss and the wolf hidden boss. In both of those case I managed to cheese the fight by spamming stun magic on them, so it wouldn't be that hard with this fight right? I died like 6 times before finding a viable solution. The details of how I find the correct solution is not important but it is the same outcome of my inability to concentrate and use half of my brain on a single task, however finding the solution is quiet fun. What's not fun is hammering down the Z key, the Enter key, and the Spacebar to get through the dialogues for the bazillion times just to get a chance to try again. Do that 6 times and you want the ability to jump off the cliff in the previous section. Normal people can probably defeat the boss in a single try, thus there's no need to skip the dialogue any faster or an auto-save near boss fights, as for me, I don’t know. This is when it occurs to me that this game is much harder and unforgiving than I took it for and if you make if just a single mistake you will witness the consequences of that specific input just a turn away, this is how I face planted many times during the boss fights. But there are many other things outside of our control. RNG on the stun magic is abysmal too, I keep relying on it to migate damage to have a chance to breathe, as this is my only tactic I've developed, only to encounter a failing streaks of 4 (four) times back-to-back. Is there a mechanic that prevent frequency use of the stunning spell? Or is it just pure RNG bullshittery? I suspect that the stun must work 50% of the time, but that was an down right ridiculous and absolutely idiotic assumption. This is also the fight where I realize all my magic skills are useless, the cross light thing deals only 500-800 damage for what? 200 MN? So is the wolf summoning spell. My charged attack can deal 200-400 attack with just the cost of 50 MN. For 100 MN I can deal 800 attack consistently, saving 100 MN to do the same thing over again. Hit with this realization, I begun to suspect the spell menu was a gaping trap for beginners to sunk hours dying to, maybe this game was designed to be very funny. Regardless I finally managed to beat the shit out of the demon by sucking up damage with my inventory shit tons of heals I grinded (I still haven't found a way to utilize blocking), after 2 hours or so, I get pretty demotivated to continue playing as there's only so much time you could divert into a single section with the same scenery and retracing the same steps, but I realized that I have already played Fear & Hunger. I persisted onward. The next hour was much more engaging with the introduction of a clearer plot and characters to throw hands with. I wish I reached this section sooner but that's just my skill issue manifesting into a problem. After the much needed breather in the church. The cavern section goes on much smoother as I fully understand what I'm doing now. I use the same tactics with the mouses, though they're too weak to require much planning. When health got low I simply return to the horse and rest. Rinse and Repeat. Then I reach next progress section. I died to the guards 2 times, and to the guard leader once. I thought there this area has to be much larger than the previous one and full of monsters, but there are only two (16) rats before you encounter the guard. So I don’t have enough time to prepare what's to come. This section could be expanded with more rats and weaker guards dotting the cavern. Perhaps a stealth mechanic too agaisnt guards that you probably don’t want to deal with. This section is so short my eyes landed on the demo's final boss after just 20 minutes. The transformation shook me out of my core, I thought I've already beat the hardest boss of the area and only now am I beating down on the lackey on its side. But then the little shit transforms itself. The fight isn't over yet and there's a second phase, with another, much more powerful opponent before me. I'm fucked. I've already used an excessive amount of heals in the previous fight to soak up damage like I did before, so I don't know how I would fare against ANOTHER boss fight, that MOGS the guards from before. It turns out, this fight was harder than it needed ' be. I did make the boss fight more difficult for myself by not learning the spell that I've bought and placed inside my inventory, I thought the ability was already given to me, but I didn't check the menu or did I realized this when fighting the rats and the three guards outside the door. I have to fight the final boss without using bleed and only items I gathered from the first area up until now; a handful of animal blood and the 11 useless rat blood (which doesn't even heal you enough to tank damage in a single turn, thus making that turn virtually useless). I also didn't notice that you can buy blood from Nirna, sawing off another source of heals apart from the limited amount in the thicket. However, all of these mistakes turns out to be beneficial for me, as it makes the fight significantly harder, and more fun. I'm now forced to use more than 20% of my brain power to plan ahead and come up with a fighting solution. Without proper equipment (again I didn't buy) the demon's damage shred through me like paper. Adding difficulty. I'm debating whether or not I can sustain all the damage via healing, but the heals are ever depleting and I need at least two turns before I can heal back the amount of damage the demons took a bite out of. I tried to increase my damage per second using the mushroom, but it only last for a turn, and you need a turn to get the damage boost and with increased cost of mana on top of that, it becomes another turn-wasting item that just that I consider worthless. This is when I finally find an use for blocking, the massive damage taken each turn force me to abandon my old delusional strategy and actually use the block function for once. After I reason with my conscience, the black bar begins to inch towards the left side. I do not falter. Unfortunately, the AI in this demo is magnificent. The enemy will block (wasting a turn not dealing damage) to bait me into attacking it, trading a lesser attack from my part into an opportunity to counter attack me and dealing significant damage oppositely, bleeding tons of my HP away while the enemy receives negligible kisses on the cheeks. I quickly took notice of this and begin to block the instance the enemy also defend. As if it understands what I'm doing, t-the demon doesn't attack, it keeps blocking and increasing its Strat buffs, I do the same, thinking that I'm one-upping it, thinking that I'm proving something. But there's no further buffs to be stored, there is only decreased attack received. Out of the blue, the demon execute a series of combo attacks that left me stunned both in the game and in real life, dealing about 600 damaged (from three attacks) in a single turn. All my heals are rat blood, I'm unable to cope. This is the first run. To counter this devastating mauve, I tried to stun the enemy, forcing the demon to waste the it's turn and give myself an opportune to attack in relative safety without fear of trading blows. The stun effect only last for a turn. So I only have single turn to execute necessarily functions, either to deal damage or to repair lost HP. Once that turn is over, the devil is active again and it will attack me after the second turn. I cope by eating up the damage to heal later on. The important thing is that the stun magic cannot be allowed to fail, or it will waste my turn and deliver catastrophic damage to me. But is it true that once blocking, the demons have a higher chance of resisting stun? THE SAME THING HAPPENED AGAIN, 6 (SIX) SUBSEQUENT stun magic attempts, all FAILEDDDDD. I cannot cope. It should've worked at the 4th times, but what if the 5th time succeeded and allow me to heal? I've become a gambler--slave to the invisible numbers, I begged for the RNG GODS to allow me to rise, but it may as well stop becoming RNG at this point if the 8th time, the 9th doesn't work.. This time, I ignore the stun mechanic entirely. I've broken free from my chains. Relying on it has proven to be a grave mistakes. I stopped gambling with my fate and decided to take the initiative into my own fingers. Then I used my brain for once and attack only when the chance of both parties trading similar blows is high, and blocking when I suspect an attack exceeding the normal count is coming—which means I block when a critical attack is coming. Through a series of successful RNG and lucky blows, I managed to defeat the final boss of the demo. With all my heals gone and left at double digits HP and MN. I've managed to win fate and secured victory into my hands after times and times of trying. How many times have I died? How many times have I reloaded and go through both the guard leader and the final demon boss? I do not know, I've died so many times that I've lost the ability to count... it's actually one time btw. I finally did improve. To say, this has been more exciting that it should've ever been. I realized that I made the fight harder than it would've been, so I returned to the boss fight, much more well equipped and well versed than ever was. Much of the spell is proven to be useless, the 500g fire magic deals a negligible amount of damage for the high cost of 25 MN per turn, similar to the 600 damage for 200 MN SCAM. In this fight, the ability Bleed is proven to be the most powerful of the game. The damage is consistent each turn and the boss doesn't seem to be able to dispel the debuff. I just keep blocking and trading blows, while the bleed kills the enemy for me. There's also an improved Biden blast too, instead of the 650-200 crypto scam. The exchange is much more preferable at 850-200, a worthwhile trade, though the MN price is still too much for my likings. I realized this fight would be 50% less exciting have I not make such a sequence of stupid decisions and with a little more game knowledge. My inability to play games actually work in my favor,
All in all, everything you're creating is coming together so beautifully, and it’s clear how much effort you’ve poured into this project. Gameplay asides because you probably don't mean it to be that difficult. It’s been a joy to play (the story), and I’m so excited to see where the journey goes from here.