OK. Found this game yesterday and am at about 50 % now. Hope the Kickstarter goes well, and I loved seeing that all the source code is open and available (I guess) for tinkering.
I like the input system. It might be better if uninteresting choices are disabled, because it gets tedious to try things just to see “Nothing happens” printed over and over. If some mildly interesting responses are added there might still be enough valid options that it does not become too easy if the nothing-happen-options are removed?
Maybe replace the generic ‘use’ verb for a greater selections of things you can do with items, to avoid it at times feeling like one of those silly Flash try-everything-with-everything-else-“adventure”-games? But overall I enjoy the freedom that is much like in a parser game, but without the typing (and without sitting with my phone guessing verbs forever, which is more time than I typically have when playing something on my phone).
Minor thing that annoys me with the game is that the directions are subjectively out of order. I would at least prefer to see East to the right of West. Gets a bit lost at times.
Mechanics aside, I do to some extent agree with namekuseijin about the story. It could be a bit more interesting. I don’t mind the short descriptions though (perfect for a small phone screen, and for the attention-span I have when playing on a bus or train), but just moving around and stealing everything not bolted down, fixing machines for no obvious reason other than that it seems like a puzzle to solve, talking to random people just to see what they say etc. I wish for some more long-term purpose. Also when playing on a phone I’m not too keen on taking notes or mapping, and while I just barely so far have managed to keep going without either, memorizing what items I am looking for, and some codewords, are stretching it. Also one location looks like a maze, and I really hope there is a solution not involving mapping that maze, because I simply refuse to do so. Sorry.
Also the map can get a bit tedious to navigate, and solving some puzzles requires moving back and forth all over the place. You go to one place, learn something new, then have to walk around to already visited locations looking for some new options to appear, and many locations just seem like they are there to make the place bigger. It should be possible to squeeze everything in a much smaller area. The entire town could be just one or two locations, with lists of houses to visit for instance. I don’t see much point in walking around just for the sake of walking. Especially since clicking the navigation buttons often fails for some reason (like the active area is a bit too small or something?).
Often when there is a named destination, when going back there is instead a direction. So I go into some house, and then I can choose to go west or east and have to remember if the entrance to the house was to the west or east when I entered (which I probably didn’t register at all and it is not visible on the screen anymore).
Compared to the choicescript games, and some much higher-budget “CYOA games” I tried on Android, this user interface is a lot better really, and the I very much prefer the structure of the game, with a proper world model and freedom to explore things.
tl/dr: Game engine, world model, GUI almost perfect. Game and story OK.