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Alright so I've written a decent amount since the last time I posted. Before I get into introducing the epic quest you embark on, I wanted to ask for some opinions on the exposition of my story, linked here. I'd really appreciate if I could get a couple people to check for appropriate length, choices, and character introduction. 

Notes:

I purposefully made it so that the player is introduced to only one MAJOR character for whether they choose to be a swordsman or an archer. The point of Aunrae, the swordsman path's major character, is that she is abrasive at first, but the player gets to see a kinder, more considerate part of her while discovering her passions. The archer branch is not complete yet.

For now, you'll have to choose to be a demon, then a warrior, then to buy a sword from Aunrae.

There's a bit on the second day training with Aunrae that I'm iffy about and I'd like some advice on how to improve it. I'm not sure if her character change is too drastic.

 

Thanks!

I did a little bit of exploration in your story, and there are several things that I like, that should be incorporated more frequently.  Firstly, Death mocking you when you die is a nice touch that I really didn't expect.  The characters are also fine, you've got a self-insertable protagonist and a few characters with interesting backstories to match.

There are a LOT of things that I find concerning/strange, however.

Firstly, there is an absurd amount of branching in this game, and I've read enough of the other branches that you haven't made too much progress on to realize they aren't going to loop back together.  You might need to cut this down a little, cause we aren't even past the second day of training, and it's already at 8k words.  Unless you plan on turning it into a romance story with Aunrae, if you actually are going to make it a game fitting of the "Fantasy Adventure" genre, the pace is way too slow.  There's unique paths already for if you become a rogue, different weapon choices are gonna have their own consequences, and that's not including the ENTIRE ANGEL BRANCH which I assume you'll want to make at least comparable to the demon one.

Secondly, I know what you were going for, with the meadow scene during the second day of training, but I don't really know if it works.  This is supposed to be HELL, after all, and even though I like how the magic has a natural basis, maybe you should explore the beauty of something like HELL instead.  I imagine that having sparring matches in the middle of a field with lava rivers rushing around you might be a little more intense, and might open up to some comedic possibilities as well.  After all, your character is super new to this world, so seeing their first LAVA RIVER might spark some interesting reactions, and you could use that to create better bonding moments with Aunrae, which, leads to the final bulletpoint.

Lastly, to address your bit on whether the character change is too drastic in the last scene you wrote with Aunrae, no, I don't think the character change is too drastic.  You laid out the foundation with her being concerned for you in the tavern just fine, but, here's the thing.  I don't think you as a character, have really done anything to garner interest yet.  You're fodder at swordsmanship, and don't speak at all.  The most you've done is buy a sword from her, and like, cool.  These last two are more opinion than anything, but I hope you consider it.

This feedback is actually more valuable than anything I've gotten before, thank you.

Honestly, I was concerned that what I was doing was too short, which apparently is not the case, haha. I haven't done too much reading on this site, which is probably to my detriment, so I wasn't sure how long peoples' stories usually are. I just did a check, seeing that with just this I have the average amount of pages for a story, which is interesting. I'll definitely cut down on the unnecessary branches, especially since it was stressing me out knowing I'd have to write all of that. For some reason in my mind longer is better? 

I could do a large overhaul of the beginning, cutting it down to its necessary parts and leaving the better stuff for during the quest. Actually, I was originally planning on starting the quest after the first day of training or using a time skip to get to then. Would you suggest I add dialogue for the player?

Make the story as long as it needs to be, and the pacing should be whatever fits the plot. There's really no major preference either way here. We have story lengths ranging anywhere from 3k to almost a million words.

But definitely don't cave in to some need to add a bunch of padding or branches that don't interest you just because you think you should. And it's almost always better to have only choices that are meaningful to the overall plot, even if that means there are ultimately less.

Looking back, I'm realizing more that I'm adding too many unnecessary choices. My intent at the beginning was only to have impactful choices. However, I've strayed from that principle and it's only served to stress me out. I know that, since there's four distinct paths, adding two within each would make it so that I'd never complete the story. Having my exposition 8,000 words just for the demon warrior path really sets a large expectation on what I do with the other paths.

While I initially wanted as much freedom for the player as possible, I'm seeing more and more that it's just not realistically possible. 

I haven't read the story (I plan to, but have been doing other things first), but I want to note that there are ways of having choices that don't add entire branches. You can have several choices that end in immediate death. You can also make a couple choices that follow the same path. Last you can use things like variables and conditional text to make choices that only change minor details on the same page going forward.
 

As an example if your character is faced with a pool of lava in their path you could have three choices: walk around left, walk around right, and swim through. This looks impressive because you have three choices on the page, but no branching has to happen. Swimming could kill you, it is a deep pool of lava... Going right could lead to a fight with a demon sea horse that springs from the pool of lava to attack anyone that dares to walk left, but once you kill it you get past the pool and continue. Going right could just be an uneventful walk next to a pool of lava, that results in you getting past it and continuing. Options like this make it look like you have more choices and keep things fresh without creating infinite writing.

 

I hope that helps for now until I can read and give real feedback.

I'm glad you took some of the advice to heart, as for dialogue for the player... I mean it's up to you.  Personally I prefer an outspoken protagonist, I feel like the silent protagonist works far better in video games where the plot isn't quite as nuanced as what you're trying to go for here.  And if you're going to have more romance stuff, almost certainly you should add dialogue.  

Branches will naturally occur throughout your story pretty regularly, so I'd just write a path with some large meaningful crossroads and then look back on it for spots where a choice had been made that you just glossed over.  Then, if you feel motivated to write that elseworld choice, go for it.  That way, there's no pressure at all, you write what you want to write.

That's what I was thinking at first. Honestly, the silent protagonist is getting really annoying to write with now. Without dialogue going out, it's hard to write for dialogue coming in and also makes the characters somewhat less believable. 

Again, thank you so much for looking it over and voicing your concerns. It helps a ton and will continue to help me in the future.

I hope you don't mind if I steal that sparring at a river of lava idea, because I absolutely love it and I want to put it in.

Not at all, that's what sharing ideas is for.

Awesome, just making sure.

The plan for now is to rework the pace of the game, introducing the quest much earlier and cutting the stuff with Aunrae in the meadow. Something like that will come later in the story, likely during a quiet time during the quest. I also deleted the unnecessary paths, and I'll make sure to keep the setting of Hell consistent and believable. The player now has only the choice to buy from Aunrae.