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Yeah, no character customization - MC is a fixed perspective. I'm mainly sticking to dudes n' gayness, and attempting to tell a story from a fixed character background. Additionally there's only one female character right now. Audio will come along as I continue to develop - looking forward to when I get to tackle that! I'll be keeping my eye out on how to streamline 'explore' prompts to be less grindy.

Major character customization isn't a high priority for this game, to help limit scope. I look forward to future projects where more of my time can be put into that. For now, our MC primarily has one trajectory, with a handful of 'flavors' - none of which are incorporated as of yet!

Agreed that it needs some help smoothing over - too many things need to occur in specific order without wiggle room. I will attempt to smooth this over in time!

Buy jewelry from wolven vendor and then chat with the Knave! Hunter wolf form is attached to the wolfpack related questline.

Glad to hear that optimization efforts are paying off!

Good feedback - I'll take that into consideration when addressing button mapping overall!

yep yep! combat speed button is scheduled for the overhaul to the combat UI (which is sorely lacking). the overall speed of combat currently slows down with each active party member added, though it doesnt feel like a fully polished implementation yet. additionally, there are two active defensive layers in the game that have yet to be added. health potions should increase your viability to stay in the fight for longer, acting as single target heals/resurrections within combat and full heals outside of combat - as well as a manual defend button that blocks all incoming damage for a few seconds. both should dramatically increase the time you can spend away from a sigil, and reward 'active play'

- Balancing narrative pacing is a challenge for sure! The ability to make all text propagate at once helps with fatigue a bit, but I have no intention of removing the two-factor button presses to progress to the next block of text.

- Skills will be earned at pathway rank thresholds in a future update to better guarantee early skill power without needing a trainer. These skills will be unique to each pathway. This should better 'buff' the value of rank ups.

- Early feedback was to speed up the pace of combat because it felt too slow. 'Fast and hectic' shouldn't be the baseline, for sure, and it should never feel like raw RNG or grinding events you've already exhausted are your only pathways forward. This boils down to two things: 1. better balancing and 2. more content for your current power level.

- Locke's difficulty jump between questlines is too steep. Either I put a level requirement lock between quest steps, or I lower the requirement. Either way, the end of his questline will still be locked behind Act 2 (same as plantwolf).

- Shade's currently overtuned. Better balancing will take place with playtesting of the other narratives - each taking place concurrently w/ the Den story (estate + cultist questlines). I'm also just not satisfied with the complexity of the fights boiling down to 'rush her hp down before she rushes yours down'. It should have another layer of play to it.

- Plantwolf's final stage isn't intended to be beatable at current power levels. Victory against the foe will only have importance after Act 1 concludes (for the same reason Locke's is gated). Having early narrative threads like these with stark challenges should act as motivations to get stronger. The problem ultimately lies in there not being enough new content to do in the meantime.

Ancient Woods & the Estate are my next primary objectives up until v0.4.0. Hopefully your existing issues with combat pacing feel smoothed over by future releases!

thanks you for letting me know! will attempt to address as we move forward

I aim for much higher overall HP stats for higher level enemies, and also to add a penalization to repeated healing from skills. Mana refilling every round is something I'm considering removing to also make it more of a valued stat. Potions and a way to 'shield' attacks with spacebar are two active forms of mitigation and resource management I'm working on, to make active and engaged play feel like it can take on 'tougher' foes. Additionally,  Damage Resistance vs Physical or Magical is indeed coming to enemy design to add some complexity - it just doesn't feel that fun until you have more options later down the game's lifespan. Trigger skills are also valuable, but not readily stackable (only one On Hit trigger should be randomly chosen if you have more than one on). I'm excited to get to the point where people can put one move on auto and have the other three trigger skills be unique conditionals (on skill use, on mana use, when struck, etc). Ultimately, I want the feeling of a growth game to lean into feeling like you're 'breaking the game' with synergies. Things should feel strong with enough fixation/investment - it's okay to outscale, as long as there is a bigger HP bar on the horizon to eventually tackle.

Pathways will have unique skills unlock at certain level thresholds to guarantee some form of scaling. Incentives to mix and match come down to build ingenuity - especially to those that want to min/max substats. I'm not against overleveling, but I plan on having unique scenes occur upon reaching certain thresholds of pathway ranks - things that will ultimately change how your character develops/grows/looks. These developments (such as scenes and unique forms) will also be locked behind story act structure.

Only branching major decision right now is the direction you can take plantwolf. beyond that, there are only a few 'hidden' scenes i can think of off the top of my head, and they're in the prologue before you get your first companion. the first is that you can submit to tendrils enough without going back to camp and you'll get to see a series of plantwolf shenanigans. the second is that you beat Knave in a fight and meet up with him again to discuss the Thief's disappearance. This should also lead to an optional scene when exploring in the Ancient Woods, where you can run into the Thief again. Going back to explain this all to the Knave will result in a final few scene - nothing major!

I definitely haven't been going into the writing mindset thinking about catering towards 'top' or 'bottom' in what I write. From a limitation standpoint, more active MC involvement (especially in panels) will have to wait for when we start getting him comfortable with existing beyond that cloak of his. That narrative wall should end at Act 1, and give rise to an increasingly involved MC through the course of Act 2. If it helps, think of this like a slow burn. We'll get to enjoying our cute companion, but the 'small steps' along the way have to happen, first!

Reports are mixed. Common locations are: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow %APPDATA%\Aftersoul %LOCALAPPDATA% %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games

im keeping development to just windows for the time being - my apologies!

eventually! i aim to give him some more content throughout the next few updates. he'll have more in v0.4.0 for sure!

intended! hp stays at its value at the end of fights now, and only tops up to a minimum of 20hp. you need to go to a sigil (camp) to automatically fully heal all the way up. this should make healing skills more valuable!

Hiya - been working on optimizing a lot of the game - hopefully the next public build is playable on your laptop!

Developed! A quest tracker is implemented and will be available in the public v0.3.0 release.

I've seen reports like this before. Plenty could be causing it. I'll be providing an alternate download for v0.3.0 that's built with DirectX11. Hopefully that version is more optimized as well! Both could help solve your issue.

The production quests from Carp come in batches. It might be after that one! The quest journal will be implemented in v0.3.0, so hopefully that will smooth things over!

It looks like the shopkeep needs to restock his inventory before he opens up shop! That's part of Carp's production questline. Unlock the quest, and then go see Carp at the Marketplace! That is likely the prerequisite.

1. Unlock the Wolven Vendor's shop.
2. Buy a cool sword from him!
3. Talk with the Wolven Guard enough before he sends you off for a proper harness.
4. Go to the Blacksmith in Greyhaven and have a chat!
5. Chat with the Wolven Guard again and see the rest of the training through!

Throughout Act I our main character will remain hooded. Act II will have a much greater focus on dragon related shenanigans! Thank you for the wonderful comment, and I'm glad you're enjoying!

I'll take a look at a lot of the writing before v0.3.0! It is important for me to display distrust in Traitor, but perhaps there is room for this to be better expressed - thank you for the comment!

Probably not for the time being! The most I can think of at the moment will be more emphasis on the 'quick start' mechanic for new games to skip progression and start with a good amount of ether + available trainers.

Hi - this is a graphics/drivers issue, which could stem from a few sources. The goal would be for me to provide an alternate download in the next update for Direct X 11. Beyond that, it could be a hardware issue. I've been dabbling in optimization behind the scenes as well, so I hope next public release is more stable!

Nope - apologies! My focus is on windows support only for the entirety of development.

there should be no current cap at this stage of development!

It is not currently slated as a possibility - my apologies!

There are several things I'm attempting in future builds to ensure it boots up fine. I'm hoping a directx11 version will fix things - but if its giving you memory issues it could come down to your hardware. I'll be attempting some more optimizations!

Great news for you, then - the next big focus is on getting a Quest Log incorporated, as well as more Boss content!

I am unsure of how to edit unreal saves. At this stage of development, there is not much that follows after Plantwolf's current final stage beyond a teaser of what happens next. That content will likely remain at the stage throughout all of v0.3.0 - so I wouldn't worry about seeing some pretty minor dialogue!

There might  be some way to do so inside of the games files - but I'll be honest, I don't have a solution offhand. best case scenario is that I produce future versions to have better download, to solve some scenarios (such as a DirectX11 version, as many are reporting problems with DX12). Apologies that the current version isn't running for you!

I hear you on that - the choice was intentional. I also understand that I could appeal to more people with a lower price point. The number I chose was to account for several things - but it predominantly boils down to this: adjusting the price of my patreon years from now to accommodate for economical changes is not something I want to do. I'd rather see people balk at the door now, than have to deal with the price being adjusted over the years to come.

no, apologies - the game is scoped to be too large for browser support!

just repeating our discussion on the discord for visibility for other folks: transferring saves from the previous version will be super unstable, due to how I adjusted a few variables. a fresh save will be more stable!

Try it now! It should be fixed.

Thank you for the kind words! Plenty more to come!

I am polling for kinks in the patreon locked side of things, currently - trying to get a feel for backer preference. I might open that up to the public at a later date when it becomes more of a priority, but right now development is focused moreso on 'setting the foundation' of the game, than catering to one target audience. I'm sure that will come in time. As for MC's role, I hope they find themselves in a plethora of different situations - and that players will be able to self-select what they want to see, and what direction they want characters to go.
And yes - The game will likely have a paid steam version at the very end of its development cycle, yes. Lots to do, lots to make. Hopefully you can understand that there's no firm answer to any of your questions, and am doubly hopeful there's something in Aftersoul that already speaks to you!

Hm - that definitely tracks. I think I put a cap, but that might only be when I'm in editor. Will look into this - thank you for the insight! (Also! The discord link doesn't work because the page is quarantined? I think? You'll have to copy and paste it to a different browser tab...)