Cool game. I like what you're doing with it.
Time for a long post... Sorry in advance.
I particularly like your character writing. Aside from Claw, I like them all. Claw refusing to actually speak to anyone makes it real hard for me (the player) to care about her one way or another. She's not aggressive or antagonistic, and because you can't interact with her she might as well not be there. And once she does open up, it jumps pretty quickly to the randomized events and she's never given a moment or two to really build her into a character that I (the character) would either like or not like. It'd be nice to see a scene or two that kind of like, establishes her as a character worth giving a shit about. Maybe its because I won the challenge with her, but her only big scene seems to be more about Nash than her.
Val is probably my favorite. I like that she seems to have some depth to her. How her interactions with the player, the group, and semi-private moments all kind of build on each other. I legit can't tell if she's being nice and personable because that's who she is and she actually likes me (the character), or if she's just a natural manipulator playing the game too. I like that characters kind of have a sense of who they are, and who they present themselves as. And the different motivations seem like their personalities could change over time, although I imagine that's going to be a nightmare to right around later lol
That said, here's a few random game play suggestions, if you don't mind.
First, when an NPC invites the player to a party, it might be good to tweak how their AI works. I keep running into situations where they invite me, we move one square, and then they kick me out. And then as soon as I try to move, they invite me again. And this repeats over and over.
The way I'd tweak this is by giving NPCs goals when they invite the player. Look a few turns forward with their AI and figure out where they're most likely to go and what activity they'll likely hit next. Then invite the player to come with to do that activity. Or ask the player to come with them to a specific location where their next activity will be, if they're not asking the player to participate. Give them a higher probability of following that goal. That way they don't invite and immediately drop the player. You could even change the invite dialog to be them inviting the player to do the thing they're focused on next, which might make it all feel a bit more natural. You could also let the player invite the NPC to join them for specific activities as well, which might be interesting.
Of course, change in the game state could change their goal. I'd probably handle this in two ways. If the leading NPC has a dominant relationship with the player, I'd just have them say "we're going to this different activity now" and lead the character where they now want to go. If the NPC has a more friendly or submission position relative to player, have them ask the player if they'd like to head to the new activity instead. If another NPC joins the group and wants to take the leading position, have a blurb where they ask both people if they'd like to do the new goal instead.
Or you can just like, lock them to their goal and not do all that stuff. That kind of interaction becomes a huge workload quickly. This is the kind of interaction that I tend to take way too far with my own development, and most of the work isn't even really noticeable by players who aren't specifically looking for it. So its probably not always actually worth making it as complex as I would lol
While I'm editing this post I thought of another fun one. It'd be interesting if a NPCs could try and recruit characters who are already in parties. It'd force the recruited character to decide who to follow. Given the relationship stats already being tracked, this would be pretty fitting. If an NPC steals the player away from another, the original NPC might see an increased rivalry and animosity with the player and recruiting NPC. The recruiter would like the recruitee more, and so on.
And also, once they do drop a player, make them take a full turn before they're able to invite again. That'll stop the NPCs from seeming like they can't make up their mind and avoid the looping that I keep running into lol1
Second, for the life of me I can't figure out the challenge system. None of the NPCs will accept any of the challenge options at any time of day or any location. And I honestly have no idea how that system is supposed to work at all. Combine this with the fact that I'm trying to avoid just assaulting everyone because it wouldn't make sense with the character I'm playing, there's very few ways for me to actually try and experience the combat system. I played around with combat mostly by save scumming to trigger the one event with val/mir that lets you initiate combat.
It might be nice to have a more neutrally motivated way to challenge someone. Instead of an outright challenge which seems to have some stricter requirements, maybe add a spar option in. It seems like both claw and nash should be willing to spar with the player, if they were on friendly terms and were asked. And I could definitely see the other three being open to practice with the player as well, as long as they're on good terms. That'd give me (the player) a chance to actually try out combat while still sticking to the character I'm playing.
Lastly, while I know its probably a bit cheaty, maybe put in an option to let the players know where the NPCs are on the map. While its less realistic, it would make finding specific people easier. I'm pretty sure whenever I lose someone I'm trying to find they're just off with someone in private, but would be nice to not waste a bunch of player actions (not character actions) roaming around the map looking for people.
