Yep, that's totally fair, appreciate the feedback. I'd love to do a game of the scale and scope of Arcanum or Shadowrun and we plan to, but have to work within our current budget constraints and we thought this was a good way to do it while still delivering a game we can be proud of and that hopefully people enjoy. But we understand it won't be for everyone, we're trying to be as transparent as we can about what we're making so people have realistic expectations and can decide for themselves if that's something they're interested in.
Thanks, we really just want people to play and enjoy the game

Yes, we're definitely working on interesting fail states and multiple paths to success, multiple endings and all that; want people to have reason to play through multiple times and try different solutions. Part of why we went with three different characters and stories is I really enjoyed DE but after 2-3 playthroughs focusing on different skill specializations it just got repetitive, having more than one character to play in the same world with entirely different story lines we thought was more interesting.

I wouldn't say it's being clueless about it, more that devs need to manage their resources and devote the bulk of their time to the largest possible market for sales. Certainly competition has increased and indie's especially have limited time and financial resources, it just makes the most sense to produce for the platforms with the largest potential customer base. Producing a cross-platform multiplayer game for example comes with additional development costs that are just out of our reach with current resources.

Hopefully the title is successful and we can have the luxury of time and money to extend the experience to more users on other platforms. I'd love to do voiceover, controller support, and a console friendly UI and port to Xbox and PS for example, but that's a significant investment that generally only the most successful cRPG's can reasonably afford to do.

It's been a really interesting and frankly humbling experience so far just to get to this point. I'm glad people are engaging and enjoying the content but I'm really mindful that I have a dev team and their families to help support with our efforts.

The idea of this game sounds interesting, especially it's setting. I'll keep an eye on the project.)
That's a common problem in game development: making an exclusive for a single platform, and then doing double work porting it to other systems.

It will cost much less, when a game is initially developed cross-platform.

Quite often programmers have hard time searching for an alternative to some Windows-specific library or framework. While this issue could be easily avoided on a early stage of development.

It is also a good practice to choose open formats and API standards instead of proprietary.

DirectX has no benefits over OpenGL, not to say Vulkan. And you won't need to write and test all shaders again for another API.

There are many examples of high-quality cross-platform engines, created by fan communities with little to no budget, at developers' spare time. ( The Dark Mod, Arx Libertatis, OpenMW, etc. )
Making a cross-platform product you can show your respect to these platforms' users. And therefore earn your studio a good reputation. ;)

I am likely to pay full-price for a game with native Linux and well-implemented Vulkan support.

If the same game is Windows and DirectX exclusive, I'd rather wait for 75 - 90% discount.
I agree, DRM-free is a hard requirement.) Many people will purchase game only if it's released on a DRM-free store.
I would prefer a longer well-designed single story with choices and branching quests over three short but completely different stories.

Thanks for the recommendation! Haven't played Age of Decadence yet but I did watch Chris Davis review of it and am familiar with it. I think Colony Ship is from the same devs, pretty excited for that one too.

Always interested in more games like Shadowrun.

So you can't create your own character?

Thanks for your support!
Right, you can customize the existing ones a bit, pick their clothing and some other mechanics. Skill development is something more like an elder scrolls game where the actions you choose will affect what skills improve rather than a traditional experience and skill points approach. Never really liked that I can spend a whole game shooting everything and then dump all my points in to Charisma if I never actually used charasmatic skills.

I get that, though I can have fun with both types of games. Sometimes I enjoy games for their unrealistic "game-y" elements, because they make for fun, creative stuff, even if it's nonsense. Like characters that emerge as you play into weird "jack-of-all-trades" types. Also, often we only pick up on how usefull or fun a skill could be when it's too late to invest in it, if the game doesn't allow to just "dump" points into it. Maybe you could include teachers, that would let us level up skills we weren't using, but find ourselves craving at some point? If it doesn't mess up the whole balance of things of course.

Thanks, the teachers aspect is interesting feedback I'll have to give some thought to. Part of why we wanted multiple pre-made characters in the same world was to allow players to explore different skills too.

Just added my vote, my friend send me a demo and looks really promising, there are some bugs and things that would like to change but is a early demo, surely it will improve later.

Thanks for your support! Yes, we're testing an early prototype on our Discord server for anyone interested in playing:

https://discord.gg/vrVrE3vBSx

But yeah, it's definitely an early prototype and needs some polish before we post it as an official demo; but I really like the direction so far and the feedback has been great.

I'm wary about raising skills through use, or at least the way it is implemented in certain games.

In Morrowind, raising certain skills requires a successful roll (like block). Unfortunately, it is difficult to get that successful roll in the first place, if the skill is low to begin with. This makes raising the skill without the aid of trainers a painfully slow process.

I would prefer something closer to Wizardry 8, where both successes and failures contribute to the leveling up a skill.

I'd also like to see this game come to GOG

Absolutely agree, our tag line for it is "even in failure you learn something..." so just the act of trying something makes you better at it than you would have been had you not tried in the first place. And we have some mechanics where you can learn from other party members if they have an expertise you lack.

Of course we need to be concerned about balance, so limiting the opportunities for these sorts of skill increasing interactions so skill checks don't become pointless and you can't just master all the skills.
Thanks for your support, we'd love to see it here too. Do me a favour and wishlist it here so we get a good idea of demand for it.