Hey everyone, I'm first going to echo what has been said in regards to constant mod communication, it was nice to always have access to a mod for quick clarifications and within the constraints of the pre-established plot I think my concerns have always been answered. I especially thank Sam in that regard.
Nevertheless, I do have some major concerns that I feel are worth bringing up since you guys are looking into running a second murder game in the future.
Starting off with the most simple thing, I think that if you are going to introduce a controversial element like fourth walling, it would be good courtesy to warn of that in the FAQs from the get-go. It's not a trope everyone likes to play out and more importantly, it is not a trope that works with every character. Picking a canon point is generally an act of choice that says “this is the standard of knowledge I want to play this character with” and it can be essentially nullified by revealing their canon to them. I know for myself that I would have apped a different muse for sure had I known this would be a major part of the gameplay, but I do sincerely hope I'm an outlier with that problem. Another thing about the fourth walling aspect that left me wondering during the gameplay was how it was stretched out to single out video game characters. I think this was unfair both to those players and the others – while video game characters had near the entire game duration to deal with their fourth walling (whether this be positive or negative for the player), all other canons had basically no chance to do anything impactful with this mechanic. By the time it became available the characters from other canons were either dead or had lost their CR entirely, which made the option of reading their canon rather meaningless in the long run. I very much appreciate you guys working with me in regards to avoiding having Miach experience her canon here, because it really would have only amounted to “breaking her whole character with no CR there to do anything about it” OTL......
Then I will sadly have to agree with Shay with regards to this game feeling NPC-centered. Maybe this would have stuck out less had the NPCs been designed for this game, but given they were canon character muses of the mods it felt like there was no way for player characters to measure up to their involvement in the world's lore. This especially correlates with Zange being the mastermind – in the end, the entire plot hinged on the mod character. We got to decide whether Zange could live or die, but the only one who even had the power to do any meaningful alterations to the plot seemed to be Zange. I understand that the ritual was a last minute addition made to rectify an OOC issue, but it being mostly centered around the NPCs, with Zange being the one to find it (and be able to cast it) definitely played into that larger issue. PCs were victims of the situation who did not seem to gain own power or agency the whole way through. To be fair to you guys though, there were also major activity issues in the game that I am sure hindered the amount of PC involvement that was planned (see the Medium, especially). With this already weighing on my mind, the intended hilarity of “Producer Len” kind of fell flat for me because it seemed to drive the point home that mod characters / a mod insert were the centralized parts of the game's plot.
Speaking of the Medium, I was originally going to critisize the letters as being a too early and too direct form of communication that took the emotional force out of dying, but now that I know this was a make-shift solution, I won't dwell on it any more. You weren't able to predict a drop after all.
For a next quick point, I absolutely agree that four was too small for a survivor pool, especially since two of the players had deadland knowledge one way or another and thus could not investigate unbiased, leaving us with only two characters who could truly participate in the final trial 'as normal'.
And finally, I think this game would have profited from a reduced plot, but that is an issue that definitely came with adapting the concept of a pre-existing anime for a game. I absolutly understand that you had to make the game so that people who watched and people who didn't watch MGRP could enjoy the plot the same way, putting you under pressure to both explain the anime and add new twists. That's a lot to juggle. In the end though, it felt like a lot of plotlines were sidelined (including the huge TV reveal) and a lot of questions were left open because there simply wasn't the time and space to have everything cleared up fully. I'm not sure myself how an effective reduction of this would have gone, but simplicity of plot is something to keep in mind as a general bit of advice.
Ultimately, some of this comes down to taste issues. Your game has been greatly loved by the active playerbase, so I am very ready to concede that “it wasn't what I imagined” is no valid point of critique. There is no shame in a game premise not suiting the taste of everyone. Sometimes you just app to a game that is perfectly fun but not for you – I still found ways to make this work for me and had some great threads and CR, so all's well that ends well. In the months preceding the game I was seeing Len put such hard work into this set-up on plurk, so I am very happy to see that it completed a relatively smooth run to the end. Congratulations and thanks for all the time and effort!
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Nevertheless, I do have some major concerns that I feel are worth bringing up since you guys are looking into running a second murder game in the future.
Starting off with the most simple thing, I think that if you are going to introduce a controversial element like fourth walling, it would be good courtesy to warn of that in the FAQs from the get-go. It's not a trope everyone likes to play out and more importantly, it is not a trope that works with every character. Picking a canon point is generally an act of choice that says “this is the standard of knowledge I want to play this character with” and it can be essentially nullified by revealing their canon to them. I know for myself that I would have apped a different muse for sure had I known this would be a major part of the gameplay, but I do sincerely hope I'm an outlier with that problem.
Another thing about the fourth walling aspect that left me wondering during the gameplay was how it was stretched out to single out video game characters. I think this was unfair both to those players and the others – while video game characters had near the entire game duration to deal with their fourth walling (whether this be positive or negative for the player), all other canons had basically no chance to do anything impactful with this mechanic. By the time it became available the characters from other canons were either dead or had lost their CR entirely, which made the option of reading their canon rather meaningless in the long run.
I very much appreciate you guys working with me in regards to avoiding having Miach experience her canon here, because it really would have only amounted to “breaking her whole character with no CR there to do anything about it” OTL......
Then I will sadly have to agree with Shay with regards to this game feeling NPC-centered. Maybe this would have stuck out less had the NPCs been designed for this game, but given they were canon character muses of the mods it felt like there was no way for player characters to measure up to their involvement in the world's lore. This especially correlates with Zange being the mastermind – in the end, the entire plot hinged on the mod character. We got to decide whether Zange could live or die, but the only one who even had the power to do any meaningful alterations to the plot seemed to be Zange. I understand that the ritual was a last minute addition made to rectify an OOC issue, but it being mostly centered around the NPCs, with Zange being the one to find it (and be able to cast it) definitely played into that larger issue. PCs were victims of the situation who did not seem to gain own power or agency the whole way through. To be fair to you guys though, there were also major activity issues in the game that I am sure hindered the amount of PC involvement that was planned (see the Medium, especially).
With this already weighing on my mind, the intended hilarity of “Producer Len” kind of fell flat for me because it seemed to drive the point home that mod characters / a mod insert were the centralized parts of the game's plot.
Speaking of the Medium, I was originally going to critisize the letters as being a too early and too direct form of communication that took the emotional force out of dying, but now that I know this was a make-shift solution, I won't dwell on it any more. You weren't able to predict a drop after all.
For a next quick point, I absolutely agree that four was too small for a survivor pool, especially since two of the players had deadland knowledge one way or another and thus could not investigate unbiased, leaving us with only two characters who could truly participate in the final trial 'as normal'.
And finally, I think this game would have profited from a reduced plot, but that is an issue that definitely came with adapting the concept of a pre-existing anime for a game. I absolutly understand that you had to make the game so that people who watched and people who didn't watch MGRP could enjoy the plot the same way, putting you under pressure to both explain the anime and add new twists. That's a lot to juggle.
In the end though, it felt like a lot of plotlines were sidelined (including the huge TV reveal) and a lot of questions were left open because there simply wasn't the time and space to have everything cleared up fully.
I'm not sure myself how an effective reduction of this would have gone, but simplicity of plot is something to keep in mind as a general bit of advice.
Ultimately, some of this comes down to taste issues. Your game has been greatly loved by the active playerbase, so I am very ready to concede that “it wasn't what I imagined” is no valid point of critique. There is no shame in a game premise not suiting the taste of everyone. Sometimes you just app to a game that is perfectly fun but not for you – I still found ways to make this work for me and had some great threads and CR, so all's well that ends well.
In the months preceding the game I was seeing Len put such hard work into this set-up on plurk, so I am very happy to see that it completed a relatively smooth run to the end. Congratulations and thanks for all the time and effort!