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Holy cow, this was fantastic. Some of those game-over gotchas were a little rude, and a couple early deductions were- while logically sound- kinda crazyshoes with how you were supposed to get there by presenting evidence (glad for the walkthrough file there), but otherwise it all felt *so* good. The intercuts between Victoria's segments and the trial in the finale, with that music playing- unbelievably hype. "Of course... I forgive you. C'mere... let me show you my forgiveness." had me grinning from ear to ear.

(The thing that really made me twig to the culprit had to be... (rot13)

ubj urycshy fur jnf jura Avpx jnf gelvat gb trg qveg ba Ehzfgehz. Gung jubyr frghc va uvf bssvpr, jurer lbh'er serr gb fabbc ohg *grpuavpnyyl* nyy gur rivqrapr lbh trg gurer vf pbzvat sebz ure, naq pbhyq or fcha nebhaq vagb vyyrtny frnepu naq frvmher vs vg onpxsverq ba ure- gung jnf whfg gbb whvpl n genc gb abg trg fcehat yngre.)

This is really polished and has some super cool moments, but I'm kind of hung up on... the core mechanic of it being at odds with the rest of the design. The tense action where you have to decide moment-by-moment how to not die that turn is great, and the action economy is a good abstraction for it... but ultimately, success or failure hinges almost entirely on Did You Have Enough Basic Moves In Hand. The overriding concern is always "is a bullet about to hit me?", and the answer is almost always "yes", and the solution is always "play a move"- which means, if you don't have one, all the rest of your planning doesn't matter, and you're dead. 

Other deckbuilders have this core problem, of course, but they usually smooth over it with a health system that gives you a certain tolerance for failure. When it's an iterative system, building your deck properly you can lower the chance of being forced to take hits on your turn, and the outer game loop is about managing that risk. But... in a game like this, where a single failure means death, any significant random failure rate is a feel-bad. And the failure rate varies with the level design: the less cover, the more movement you need to be doing, but the incremental deckbuilder thing locks you into a certain proportion of offense to defense, forcing you to mulligan over and over to find viable hands.

I do like the action economy aspect- keeping an eye on your AP and moves-in-hand to ensure you don't get stuck taking a breath at the wrong time is a good tactical challenge. The question is how to preserve that core challenge- making the most of limited and unpredictable options- without creating as many situations where all roads lead to dead. Maybe... separate decks for moves and attacks? Or the ability to slash enemy projectiles out of the air? More cover options in the level design? I'm not sure exactly what the right solution is, but I think you want something to cut down on "a big guy with a machine gun is immediately firing at you turn one and your opening hand doesn't let you move, RIP" moments.

(Also- is there any significance to those Corrupted cards that sometimes show up in longer levels? I thought maybe relying on them gave you a bad ending, but I played through twice without using Corrupted cards the second time, and got the same outcome. Just a catchup mechanic for if you find yourself in a stalemate, or is there something else going on there?)

WHAT. WHAT. WHAT THE. NO WAIT WHAT THE. HANG ON. HOLD THE PHONE. WHAT JUST. I THOUGHT I UNDERSTOOD- BUT- AND THEN- WHHHHH

There is- there is so much going on, and it's all going to be stuck in my brain until I figure things out and exorcise it... is there, like, a Discord or a forum or somewhere you know people are talking about this? I need to be where people are talking about this. Where are all the Witch Hunters? I am putting on my goat mask right now.

This was incredible. No other game requires you to be this bonkers in the head. It's astonishing how much it just... completely turns you into the kind of person who has a crazy board with strings and pushpins ranting about how the Rockefellers are secretly lizard people and planned the JFK assassination. That might sound like an exaggeration but I swear to god it is not.

(It's even funnier considering how appropriate this all is for the perspective character...)

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey, how dare you. Hey. Hey I wanna have a word with you. How dare you? How could you? Hey, why would you do this? Listen. You can't do this. This isn't okay. Money well spent. What's wrong with you? Hey, listen: what's your problem? I'm grinning like an idiot. Don't do this. I can't believe you. Jesus christ. Go jump in a lake. 

I mean. How dare you? Like, what's your problem? Unbelievable.