Ok, I've played to the point of wandering around Baux collecting Scarlett Mushrooms. Does the demo go beyond that? If it does, I may need some help, not sure where to go next. Anyway, here are some thoughts so far.
Positives
-I like the music. Seems to fit well.
-I like the interactivity of the mushroom picking. It's fun to just always have an eye open for something to pick up.
-The crafting system looks good from what I've seen so far.
-I like the event battle at the beginning in the trials, where the goal is not to defeat all enemies but just to stay alive
a certain number of turns. I think battles with unorthodox parameters and objectives spice a game up and make it
more fun.
-I like how the game switches between different characters. I think there's a lot of potential there.
-The mapping is excellent in my opinion. It looks great, full of visual detail. I like how Baux has lots of different
parts that connect to make up the city. However, this is related to my biggest negative in the game....
Negatives
-...which is that as great as the maps look, they are very empty as far as interactivity and NPCs. When I wandered around Baux there were
only a handful of people and it just seemed empty. There were lots of buildings, but I couldn't go into any of them. As a gamer, that kind of frustrated me.
I'm the kind of player who likes to explore every house and enjoys finding little things and getting little details from NPCs inside, but I couldn't do that. I'm guessing, though, that this might be due to this being a demo, and that you're planning to fill in those details later.
-The "holding shift/skipping dialogue" thing that was mentioned above....I had the same problem and missed a lot of the dialogue.
-A lot of the treetops/bushes/lamp posts and pots were walkthrough in Baux. For the treetops and lampposts specifically, I'd suggest making their passibility 'star' so that the player can walk behind them but not on top of them.
-In the opening, drought is spelled draught.
-The evade rate seems really high in battle. My attacks were missing a lot, which can be frustrating. The enemies attacks were very weak, so I never felt in any danger. This is probably because it is the very beginning of the game, but I might make it so the enemies do a little more damage (maybe enough to kill a character w/ 10-12 hits), or the player might get bored.
Overall, it shows promise. The biggest thing I would work on is adding interactive details to your maps. I might consider getting rid of a lot of the houses and shops in Baux if the player can't enter them. If they aren't there the gamer doesn't miss them, but if they are there and can't be entered it feels frustrating. Looking forward to seeing more!
Oh, and let me know if your demo goes beyond collecting mushrooms in Baux....if it does I can't figure out where to go.