The Good People (Na Daoine Maithe)

This game has a unique vision and spares no expense to make it a reality. Its charming artstyle makes you feel like you're stepping straight into a storybook. There is a clear, deep, and passionate understanding of the game's sources of inspiration, and the story as a whole is all the better for it. Each narrative decision is made with intention and direction; the characters and lore of the game's world are complex, endearing and thought-provoking. A lot of heart was put into this game, and it shows. If you're looking for a unique, thoughtful, and heartfelt experience, this game is showing a lot of promise.

I love it, I am SO excited for more. Shae is such a sweet pea. Robin is SUCH a brat. And I adore that it takes place in Tír na nÓg

Good ♥♥♥♥ right there

This game is turning out to be very charming and fun to read through. The characters all seem to be written as distinct entities with their own thoughts and motivations, and there's many endearing qualities to spot for even those who are rough around the edges in temperaments or ways of speech. It's easy to see why they're being offered up as future romance options, while still giving them plenty of room to be existing in their world for their own independent reasons that don't rely on simply existing for the player's benefit. The world they're living within is thus far feeling like a plausible alternate dimension with real problems and benefits to being in it. The writing has thus far been high quality on not just world and character development, but also pacing of scenes and tone. Serious moments are allowed to be serious and have time to sink in for what they are, while witty moments are also injected in appropriate spots and given the chance to really shine. Especially moments like Robin's little stunt to delay Maeve, punctuated by what the choice for background music became as she retaliated and chaos ensued. It felt like a legit thing that could happen in an unseelie court, not some obnoxious stretch to make fey shenanigans happen. I appreciate that there's some solid quality of life features, including the ability to turn off timed questions' timer. I don't like timed questions to begin with in games and this timer is very fast. Whether it's a player is unprepared, or have mobility or reading issues that slow reactions, or maybe they have a less responsive mouse to try navigating to the answer they want- it would be very easy to miss those timed questions. So thank you to the devs for giving the option to turn the timer off for a VN that's not otherwise time sensitive. On the subject of devs being mindful of things, however, I do have one piece of constructive criticism. Before anyone tries to leap on me for supposedly being an intolerant chud, know this is coming from someone who is very active in the LGBT community and whose neiphling came out to them before anyone else in the family because they knew their auntie would be in full support and ready to throw down if anyone gave them ♥♥♥♥ for living their truth. My critique is being given from a place of wanting to see the story improve and is on a matter of writing technicalities, not politics. The critique- when introducing the MC to gender-non-conforming characters, and especially Robin's fluid pronouns, it would be good for a little more thoughtfulness and consistency to take place in how that's happening. This is marketed as a historically inspired piece, with MC being a poor, minimally educated, tenant farmer who lived out in a rural area of ye olde Ireland. Their culture did not have modern day gender bending things happening as a norm; especially with a strict as the catholic sections were about men's work and women's work and everyone knowing their place. Even fey lore was largely kept to he or she, fey King or fey Queen, types of dichotomies; their "otherworldliness" was expressed in weird behavior quirks or uncanny physical features, or bright colors in opposition to the drab clothes of peasantry, or magic usage, or other things not typically related to gender. Which isn't to say that you can't have the fey being delightfully gender bending and fluid entities in this time era, because you absolutely can and it would make sense for the fey of all entities. *But* it would also be natural for MC to not immediately default to things such as referring to Shae as "they" (as though they innately know upon viewing each character what their preferred pronouns are going to be) and need that to be politely explained; or to be a bit confused by everything that is Robin because that's entirely outside their previous range of experiences. They don't need to be some raging bigot about it, but some confusion would be realistic. And such confusion would also make it a little more apparent to the fey entities that something is up with Daonna, who has had plenty of exposure to them and their ways and knows what everyone prefers for themselves, or that maybe the human is telling the truth that they're not Daonna. For the written aspect of characters speaking about Robin and being mindful of the readers themselves, a meta duty of writers, there's scenes such as the one with the King immediately after Robin's stunt. Flan is speaking, but we can only ever see one sentence at a time because of the size of the dialogue box, breaking up the flow of speech. He's talking about both Robin and Maeve at one point, and every other sentence he's changing what pronouns to use for Robin, while being inconsistent with usage of proper names. Which means pronoun confusion pops up, not being certain who the "she" in the sentence might be. Instances such as: Robin is mentioned by name and "he" in one sentence by the King, and then it's Maeve and a "she" that comes off like it's talking about Maeve, and then the third independent sentence is making it clear that it was Robin as the previous "she" but now they're being called "he" again. And we don't have context clues such as body language with the King's eyes darting to one or the other disruptive person in the room to keep straight who is being spoken of. It can pull the reader out of the conversation when they have to try solving a pronoun puzzle each sentence/click through dialogue, or open up the history log to see the full flow of dialogue. And, realistically, *most* people wouldn't be changing up pronouns *that* often, even with the most gender fluid of characters being in mention, because pattern recognition and defaults are a thing; there's usually a vibe of "today they're seeming like they're presenting more like X and so I'll go with that" or "I'm inclined to refer to them as more like X today and know they don't give a damn". Or it's they use the same pronoun for a small stint, then something the gender fluid person does flips some inner mental switch for the speaker, for whatever their reasons might be to associate the behavior with one gender or other, and the speaker starts using a new set of pronouns for them for a stretch of time. If there's going to be constant switches between each sentence, however, because certain fey characters such as the King are so accustomed to indulging Robin's chaos and fluidity, then mindfulness by the writers of how many people are being referenced in a specific conversation, and what the last identifying proper nouns were, would be very useful. Just a couple thoughts to try helping tighten up the initial introductory narrative, and also aid reader comprehension of scenes so that full concentration can remain on these lovely characters and the intriguing switcheroo plot that has happened. I'm truly looking forward to seeing how the plot continues and all the different routes opening up. And I also want to give a quick "thank you" to the devs for apparently making it so different routes can be done as a friendly platonic playthrough, not needing to romance character to have positive outcomes. Especially for a first playthrough, I'm far more interested in seeing plot and getting to know characters, But at the same time, these characters have already endeared themselves to me and I would hate to have them potentially see bad ends just because they weren't the ones I picked for a romance. I'm hoping that can largely continue being the case in different routes because love for friends can be just as powerful of a motivator as love for a romantic partner. Thanks again for the lovely story that's full of lore frequently overlooked in VNs/otome genres, and such adorable main characters to be interacting with. Really looking forward to doing some repeat plays to see the outcomes of options not yet taken, and even more so looking forward to seeing the rest of the game when updates come out.

it's peak. can't wait for more!!

I'm quite obsessed. Both the writing and art is gorgeous! Nearly every character in the game is engaging and interesting in some way, my original favourites being Maeve and Aife. At the time of writing this, I've played through what is available of Shae's route, and they've become a new favourite of mine. The pacing in their route is quite good, and nearly all the dialogue choices I made felt very satisfying (I chose all the flirting options :3 And their reactions were very cute!) I find in a lot of otome games the choices can feel really meh, but that was not the case with The Good People. I thoroughly enjoyed every choice the game prompted me with. I think my favourite part of the game is their dictionary feature. There's a lot of names and Gaelic(?) phrases to remember, and I like that the game just does it for me. It's easily accessible and really helps with my goldfish-esque memory. It also feels like I'm actually learning something whenever a Gaelic(?) phrase pops up. Lovely game and story :3 Death to Keagan, I do not trust that man.

I just love the amount of passion and thought the devs gave this game. Even with the demo, you can see this game was made because they wanted to tell a story and I'm all the more willing to go on whatever ride their story will take me. I've played a lot of otomes and visual novels and I gotta say, the amount complexity and life these characters have is just so damn YUMMY. I wanna sink my teeth into them and taste the lore. Seriously, take my money, my love. I've no regrets in backing their kickstarter. This is a lovely game and yall should give it a shot.

This game/ story has been on my mind ever since I first played it. The characters are rich, the worldbuilding is intricate, and the plot is so INTERESTING. I absolutely love this game and it's difficult to put into words all the reasons why. It's so clear that the Moirai Myths team have put their heart and soul into Na Daoine Maithe, it is such a breath of fresh air from many offerings from huge studios which just feel soulless and uninspired in comparison. There are many things that make this game stand out, but I'll list a few here: * ROMANTIC/ PLATONIC - the ability to play any route as romantic or platonic.... AND the fact that you are not missing out by doing so. The platonic version of the route does not feel like it's lacking in comparison to the romantic one. * INTRICATE CHARACTERS AND WORLD - the incredible depth of the game. This is more than just a "fairy dating simulator". The characters are complex and the plot is intricate, everyone has their own world and story outside of the MC. Nothing feels shallow or 1-dimensional. * CHOICES MATTER - the choices truly feel like they matter and have an impact on the game. One example which stuck out to me is the choice from the beginning of Shae's route to [spoiler]lie or tell the truth about rejecting Flannán's deal [/spoiler]. What you choose there has a large impact on the story and pops up again later. * REPLAYABILITY - though the routes run parallel to each other, you are not running through the same story over and over again. You go with each companion and you uncover a lot of different things in the world. Plus, because the choices all can give you different information, there is SO much to unpack and dive into. I love being able to piece together the lore from this. The routes (at least the 2 x first halves which have already been released) build on each other, so you find out things in Maeve's route which makes Shae's route hit harder, for example. * BEAUTIFUL ART - I mean what else can I say? I love looking at it. I know I said it's not just a "fairy dating simulator" but I do still love looking at hot fairies. I really hope that you'll choose to give this game a try. It's 100% worth it and I'd actually pay double what I did, so it's a steal as well. UPDATE [after Shae and Maeve's routes came out]: you GOTTA play this game!!! it's so fun!!!

I love so many things about this game - World: the worldbuilding is very in-depth, and the in-game glossary is so helpful for things I either am not familiar with or have forgotten the explanations for (there's also a nice detailed world map) - Characters: the characters are definitely complex, even side characters. The routes expand on more than just the titular character as well, so playing a route doesn't make it feel like the rest of the characters disappeared from the world. (Maeve's route let me obsess some more over my favorite, Flannan) - Story: the story is revealed more/differently with the different routes. I really like how I was able to see different perspectives of events by playing the two available routes, and how it really does help contextualize scenes in the other route (basically, having read Shae's route helped me better understand things happening in Maeve's route) - Replay mode: you can replay chapters to try different choices without affecting your actual progress, allowing you to expand on lore, see character's reactions, etc - Choices: the number of choices doesn't feel overwhelming, nor too little. You're given plenty of opportunities to make a choice, sometimes small and sometimes not. And the choices don't just lead to the exact same response; a certain choice might get you more lore/info. I also really like how the game doesn't force you to commit to choices. You can rewind and change your choices. This is great for me because I like to play very casually and am prone to stressing myself out over what choice to make. Being able to rewind removes the stress (or having to make a new save file before every choice, which I do in other games). For the same reason, I'm glad that turning off timed choices is an option. 100% stress free gaming experience. - Friendship or Romance: You can have either a romantic or platonic relationship with the character who's route you're playing. I really like this because I would be reluctant to play certain character's routes if they were ONLY romance. You can also turn on choice indicators that will let you know if a choice you made pushed you more towards the romantic route or platonic one. - Art: The art is amazing. The voice acting is also amazing. The music is amazing. Aesthetically & stylistically, this game is beautiful. A treat to my eyes, if you will. I was kind of hesitant after playing the demo, because I was feeling unsure about how much I liked some of the cast (I was really just down bad for Flannan lol), but even just playing the first half of Shae and Maeve's routes has made me like them both so much more. As of now, I've played all the released content, which is the prologue/first volume and the first half of Shae and Maeve's respective routes. I'm very excited for what's to come and definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes VNs/romance games

Great story, good character design (both on visual and story) very nice bg music, i've been enjoying it so far. Looking forward to the new contents