Spoiler:
So I'm gonna go in order of events and sorta describe what I thought about each one.
Introduction was really fun - it was a decent amount of work, but I liked how it paid off. Giving each person a reason to be there and having it all conflict with each other was a nice experience. It felt, in a way, more accurate to the actual Zero Escape series as a whole and something most games don't touch upon. I liked it a lot.
Pregame was fun, but it didn't hit the right notes I was looking for. Looking back, I should've tinkered with it a bit to make it more RP heavy and less adventurey and learning about the plot. I think that was my mistake, and I should've let things naturally play out as people learned about each other in a relatively peaceful environment. I don't think this worked, but I still kind of think it could, in a way.
Decision Games were a mixed bag, I think. Decision Game 1 was fine, Decision Game 2 should've been tinkered with to make penalties worse, I think. Should've been much more of a sacrifice. The only conflict that occurred in that room was less because it needed too for the decision game and more because Nelson needed two people dead. Decision Game 3 was the highlight of this game, and in a way, I think the climax. It was all down hill from there, but I really liked it. Red especially - Hawk, Nelson, Roque, and Vano had one hell of a decision to make. I think that's more of what DG should be, but that's a bit hard to hit. I think it was ultimately more success with the DG then in ETL, but improvements need to be made. Potential, but this wasn't the best runout for it.
Group roamings was the biggest mistake I made. It just sucked. Horribly. The moves alone nearly drove me insane. The concept is good in a sense?, but I honestly think this just isn't a good fit for VLDR. It makes more sense to keep roaming as it is - for everyone. Less constant moves, less 'things going to drive the host insane', and lets people meet with each other. Bad idea. Just... horrible. Biggest mistake I made. I was so glad getting everyone together because it was just genuinely that bad.
The fact that no one solved Project Room T was lame, but the components to solve it were gone for like most of the game - and the tax scanner ended up in the armoury after Hywel, and I don't believe anyone visited the Armoury after Hywel got his sword. It didn't matter, but that and the sky rags were the best puzzles in the game IMO.
Letting Vano break into everything was a mistake. I think crafting as a whole is just bad, after this game. The only thing it makes sense for is traps - either nothing got used, or what did get used broke the game. There was no 'improved weapons' or what have you. Sorry, TNO. I think crafting should just be nixed - or at least the MECH form. Poison/medical stuff is fine, I think.
Skills were the best part of the system, I think. People running around and getting various lore, all of them having a purpose was fun. It was definitely a mess, but looking back, I don't think there was any cut I could make. I felt everything had importance - and I really wanted to add one more stat anyway. I don't know if it was too complicated to ever be used again, but not having failures for things people were skilled at was immensely enjoyable. Maybe it needs to be tinkered with, maybe not. I might toy with the system in my spare time still, see if I can come up with something better.
Internal/External Influence/Whatever the pairs were was great. It increased RP a lot more and made this game feel natural. This is possibly the biggest success in this game - the pair roles felt a lot more natural since they didn't have to win together or anything and the players could make what they wanted, the internal influence (knowing Cassandra) changed this game in so many ways and gave Nelson a huge motive, and the two important figures (blacksmith and hailey) being kidnapped also added so much to this game. I think this was the biggest change I made, and the most effective one. Absolutely fantastic.
Let's talk about abilities! Bloodhound is a wonderful ability - learning about other characters is great. Someone needs to use that again because it is such a good ability. It's not overpowered, but it lets people learn about each other. Much of the rest went unused, sorta extraneous. I don't think that was necessarily my fault, though, because everyone was specced in a word to combat and if there's no combat...
Each character getting some lore was nice. It felt important, even if the Cerulean subplot was almost-but-not-quite getting anywhere. It was a lot of work, but I think it had a great return on it. This felt like the most natural 'not set in our time' game for me because of that - everyone was vaguely grounded and knew a lot about the forces controlling their world. It certainly wasn't an awkward 'wait, we have a king?' thing that can occur in other games.
Content in this game got fucking chewed through - my god. I estimate 96% of this game was found and resolved by one person or another. That's what lead to the really fast paced speed of this game - I didn't expect it to end in 8 days, but it did, just because the game was that immensely active. In eight days, there was enough actions to last a normal game with typically double or more the run time. But it felt natural - there was nothing left for you guys to see.
'Good end' was something I had in my back pocket to avoid a nasty 'we're gonna kill each other for the sake of violence at the last moments' which was about to happen. I hated that sort of thing because it feels... wrong in a word. Everyone had worked it out so far, everyone had kept it going, and so they... what. Kill each other? I'm OK with the ending, but part of me wonders about the alternative.
Dunno about the flavour in this game - can't really judge that. I have a very dismissive view to my own work.
Move times is necessary to host a game. I don't even care. You absolutely need them for your own sanity. even if they don't work out well and feel awkward, it's just SO MUCH BETTER TO USE IT. That extra time is exactly what you need to stay on top of things. If I ever host again, move times HAVE to be in the game. It's just hopeless otherwise.
I don't think I have much else to say about this game. I think the epilogues feature what I thought about the characters very well - trust me, you would not have gotten a paragraph if I didn't like them and found them interesting people. There's a lot I hope to get used because it worked well, and some stuff that has been tinkered with that might make an occurrence if it makes sense to do so. ZTD was a very experimental game, and it really went like no other game I've seen at least. Points for novelty, ha.
Thanks for playing.