YioruYioru
I am not sure how much you plan to overhaul the gameplay in the future (combat/items etc.), but imo this is the only thing lacking atm. If you would find 1-2 ideas to make the gameplay loop genuinely interesting, it would become much better than average of other HRPGs.
The game overall is great, but currently carried by the art and story. Most of the actual gameplay itself has no depth. You move from A to B, you talk, farm a bit in-between, then talk again, and repeat. It just feels like most of the stuff is there as "filler" to not make the story progress too fast.
The water/food/sleeping system is an inconvenience at best (or maybe I've misunderstood what it brings.) The combat is boring and too easy. The dungeons are clones of themselves with different enemies and not very interesting to explore.
As an example, you could drop the combat system, and instead, for each fight, write a custom text event where you offer 3 choices to the player and only 1 is the right one.
Example: Minotaur fight
Choice 1: Shoot it in the head with your bow
Choice 2: Fight the minotaur in melee with the fire blade
Choice 3: Cast the mysterious spell you found written on the wall
Only one choice would result in success, the others would fail, and maybe if you had talked with the right NPC before you could have known beforehand.
Alternatively, if you want to keep a typical RPGM combat system, some suggestions to make it more interesting:
- clothing damage / battle rape
- enemy weaknesses (which you can learn beforehand)
- seducing enemies
- stealth
I've seen each idea above implemented very well in other games. There are even games which you want to replay after completion. As an example (just for inspiration on how some games have managed to do it - not to copy it), my favorite is LonaRPG, where your character is very weak, but the dev introduced stealth mechanics to the game, so you have to be careful not to enter their line of sight, but if you succeed you can dodge the fight, or backstab the enemy if you think it's worth the risk, etc.
Anyway, good luck, and glad to see you here!