It’s a real toss-up for me! Pacian has been one of my favorite IF authors since I got into the scene in 2010, and this game promises to have all the strong characterization and focus on relationship dynamics that I tend to enjoy in his work. (Wait, is it perhaps time for my unpopular opinion that I never really clicked with Superluminal Vagrant Twin because it had so much less of that up-front? Anyway, in terms of increasing appreciation for his later games, I’m doing my part by bringing up Forsaken Denizen whenever it’s even slightly relevant.)
But I’m also an amateur linguistics nerd and a lover of language puzzles, so I’m very excited about Draconis’s game as well, and between their expert background in the field and their well-established puzzle IF chops, I have very little doubt that they can pull it off in a satisfying way.
I would say I’m very lucky to get two dishes so well suited to my palate, but I did vote for Pacian in the challenger poll so it wasn’t all luck.
I love time pressure because (1) the adrenaline of a rapidly approaching deadline really kicks my productivity into high gear and (2) it gets me out of my own way. I can be a bit of a perfectionist and spend a lot of time self-editing and second-guessing, sometimes to the point where the project doesn’t get done at all. But if I have a very limited time to make something, and everyone looking at it is going to know that, then I know perfection isn’t feasible and no one expects it to be, so I can stop rewriting every sentence ten times and making sure to include handling of gameplay situations that shouldn’t be possible and whatnot. And I can give myself permission to make something that kinda sucks without it being too much of a blow to my ego if everyone says it kinda sucks, because what can you really expect on that kind of schedule? (Not that the reception of any of my speed IF has been characterizable as “it kinda sucks,” I’m just always prepared for that possibility.)
Regarding the question about repeating myself, I do worry about it in the context of an ongoing series, but otherwise if anything I worry about being a little too eclectic. Whenever someone says “I’m looking forward to your game because I loved unrelated games X and Y that you did!” I’m like “uh… well, this one’s nothing like those, so don’t get your hopes up?”