I think the goal of finishing the game is noble but also demonstrates the need for versions and feedback. I get what you were going for, in theory it's good, in practice it has been demonstrated not to work.
The reason it doesn't work is that the issues are now fundamental to the game and its code, which would have been avoided with at least a demo, I think. I'm no expert, this is just the opinion of someone who's played many games and is slowly working to develop their own.
Let me go over some of the issues just from the beginning.
1. Main Menu
Positives: Customizing the standard build menu is good, and I like the border and font. I love how you directly credit each contributor in the About game/help and I think that should be done more often.
Negatives: * No return to main menu button. You can still press esc to close out of a menu but it's a bit confusing.
* "About game" and "Help" lead to the same screen which is redundant.
* The standard build's Help menu is necessary for completely new players.
* The credit to Ren'Py is removed, and I believe that's the only legal requirement for using Ren'Py? You're supposed to credit the developers of the engines and link to their stuff. It's probably not enforced but it seems in poor taste.
* In the settings, you've disabled Rollback (understandably) but left the option and kept the Voice volume. Both are redundant.
2. Opening
* Starting in the middle of the action is fine, and even intriguing, but the game does nothing to establish what's going on or what you're meant to do. The decision to immediately visit the prison in a castle you've never been to is bizarre and never adequately explained.
* The name Hero is so generic. Even games where it's pointless let you name the main character, Ren'Py is built to allow it, and this is an RPG-style game where it kind of matters.
* Just as a basic experience, the game is not built in a way that adequately forms a narrative. For a specific example, the first four options you see are "(NPC) Carpenter/(NPC) Guard), To hall, Sleep in the cell."
Dropped into this scenario, the player will most likely choose the first option "(NPC) Carpenter", right? But within the narrative of the game, the Guard should be standing between you and the Carpenter. So by making the first option the most likely, you're having the player walk right past the guard and talk to the Carpenter. The Guard even explains who the Carpenter is. It's a basic failure of player choice prediction.
Even if you can't control what a player chooses to do, you could at least make it more likely a player will make a choice that creates the most coherent narrative to a game. The simple act of placing the option to talk to the Guard first leads into this. Or, better yet, hiding the Carpenter action until you've spoken to the Guard and gotten permission to pass.
You don't need to have a strictly linear narrative, but you need to consider designs decisions like this or else players will just be left confused and dissatisfied, as they seem to be from this thread. This is a specific instance, maybe seemingly trivial, but it represents the larger pattern.
3. Dialogue/Interactions with NPCs
* Putting NPC before every name may be some kind of translation issue, but it's silly considered every character but you in an NPC.
* Some characters have names in the choice menu before we learn their names, and you can immediately ask about other characters it specifically says you've never met, and because you're (presumably, if he tells the truth) a stranger travelling from a distant land, you wouldn't know any of them by reputation.
* Another issue is giving the player options that lead to nowhere while not providing any sort of direction. Once you click on the option to talk to the Carpenter, the first option is "discuss situation." Not knowing what else to do, a player is likely to click that. And they're met with no, nothing to do here. Then there's an option to craft scrolls, without an explanation of what scrolls do or how many gems would be needed. You can't even click the descriptions of the material in this menu, only in the Inventory. Then the Activities button leads you to nothing. And then discuss others leads you to Priest Dall, who neither the player nor the character should know, and both discussions lead to nothing.
This is an entire set of interactions that lead to nowhere, set up as the first option in the game. Of course players feel lost and frustrated.
* When you choose to speak with the Guard, and choose the first option Discuss situation, he immediately counts your money. Why? Not in the trade menu, in the Discussion of the situation. And your money is not listed in your Inventory or the trade menu choice. The trade menu also lists items to buy, and doesn't actually describe them until you exit those options or buy the item. Also if the passage is secret, why is it immediately visit to the character?
* It's not until the conversation with the princess, which is the third option to talk to in the hall (the second location, unless you go to the Catacombs or the secret passage, both alluring possibilities), that you get your character's actual name and some context. It not only makes no sense to start in the prison, it takes you away from the most helpful conversation for a starting player.
4. Misc.
* The description of the amulets for the catacombs doesn't make it clear they're temporary, it allows you to buy multiple but they don't seem to stack (causing you to waste money), they don't appear in your Inventory, and there's no warning when it runs out.
* No stats or equipment screen. I only realized there were stats when I used the int scroll. It wasn't even clear what stat changed. Stats are something you want to track. You should be able to read them easily and identify how they change and why. You can do an Inventory screen, stats and equipment should be doable.
* The passage of time is also unclear. I'll do a bunch of actions and no time passes, and then do two actions and then the time of day passages, preventing me from doing what I was planning to do. There's no clear way for me to check the time of day beyond checking who is available to talk to.
* You can apparently only exit to the general map at night. It's not clear narratively why, compounded by the passage of time issue.
* The maze situation was kind of miserable and not very fun.
* Unable to track the time of day, my stats, or anything, I have no idea why I spoke to a character and reached a game over. Is there a time limit? Did a certain stat get too high or too low? The reasons for game overs need to be clear so they can be avoided.
These are just some of the immediate issues, almost a fascinating amount of them. I could go on and on breaking down the issues with this game, but they seem too fundamental to me at this point. The player needs to be guided directly and indirectly in some way through the game, they need to be able to access information that's relevant for planning actions, and the narrative needs to not constantly contradict itself due to the information the character and player are presented with. I wouldn't be willing to spend as much time as needed breaking down this game unless I were somehow a paid consultant or part of the team making it. That may seem greedy, but requesting some community participation for a promising game is one thing, requesting free labor from a community that you'll profit from for such a flawed game is another.
I really do hope you're able to salvage this because it really does have some interesting bits buried under baffling decisions.
