Hey SLJ, I think I understand your concern with the SAPI when it comes to language switching. We're hoping to include features that allow for use of the game in other languages - while the voice acting will be in English, gamers who prefer another language will hopefully have the option to have all menu text translated into their first language, as well as having access to SAPI "subtitles" of the spoken dialogue (or to get rid of the spoken dialogue completely if they prefer). In this case, do you still see an issue arising with the use of SAPI in-combat announcements? I'm really reluctant to use the screen reader because honestly having those little announcements not play at the affected unit's position is actually pretty disorienting, in practice.

Regarding footsteps in combat - this was something we spent a lot of time trying to figure out, early on as we were designing the combat system. The truth is that having units walk or run back to their starting location after attacking slows combat down way too much, and actually feels significantly less realistic than the way it is currently. Of course it's not 100% realistic as-is, but we do think it's the better option overall. We also thought of having units stay in their new position (so if Gwen runs over to attack a wolf, her position is now over where the wolf was, until she runs somewhere else) but ultimately that concept was even more disorienting and would probably just lead to lots of confusion. The way we have it set up kind of imitates some older JRPGs, such as on the Super Nintendo, where a unit performing a melee attack would rush over and strike the enemy, then sort of leap back into place.

Stirlock - We're including screen reader support (though if I'm correct right now we only support NVDA) for all of the main text. The only places we absolutely have to use SAPI are when we think it's particularly important for the text to play at a specific position in the stereo field. Hopefully since these are pretty minimalistic situations (a brief announcement of a word and a number usually), it won't be too big of an issue.

Also, I've got to say that Ian is way too kind. He's totally right about how we really complement one another's strengths and weaknesses, and this project has been such an exciting opportunity for all of us. But I had lots of unrealistic expectations at the beginning, and the truth is, I don't think either of us were ready for real-time combat when we started. But I think we're in a good place going forward for our next game, and may be able to bring something even more action-packed to the table after this first project.

Agreed with Stirlock here, had a listen to the demos you provided, and both systems seem extremely well designed.  I've always loved turn based combat, though if you do a real time game in future, that will be interesting as I've never seen it done well in an accessible game up to  now. 
As to voice acting, I'm not incredibly bothered either way if it is included, as it's always fun to give voices in your head to characters, like reading a book.  Though if it does come into play that would obviously be wonderful as I believe you guys would find the right people for each role.

Dan_C: Have you ever played Swamp? I'd say it pulls off real-time combat pretty masterfully.

FabiG: Please don't misunderstand - translation isn't a current feature of the game. It's something we're hoping to accomplish by the time we release the game, but we can't make any promises.

@Joseph:
It sounds fantastic that you also have a translation feature in mind, and subtitles as well. Wow.
If the translation is being implemented in the game, then using sapi wouldn't be an issue. But until translation has been implemented, then I see it as an issue. I'll show you why practicaly:
Here is a link to an online demo page with all the voices from Acapella:
http://www.acapela-group.com/voices/demo/
On this page, you can choose what language you wanna test, what voice, and then you can type in a text in the text box, and click the listen button to have the selected voice reading the text. If you type in the messages sapi announces in the game, and for example choose the danish language, Arabic, Japanese, German or whatever other language, you'll realize that people really have to get used to understand when the sapi voice in their language speaks english. So in other words: If those messages in the battles are important, then people needs to understand those. If not in their own language, then in english, which of course is the reason for people are switching the voice on their screenreader. So, because my main language is danish, I switch the voice on whatever screenreader I'm using to english while reading english text. The same goes for the sapi voice if I need to use that, because I don't understand all the english text read by a danish voice.
I do really understand why you want sapi to announce those messages in the battles from the enemys persission, because it feels more natural, but the sounds are comming from the enemies anyway, and the enemy don't have the sapi voice, like wolf don't talk, so for that reason I don't mind using a screenreader announcing the status if an enemy has been hit or not. I can easily identify what enemy the screenreader is talking about because of the sounds. I'm not saying that the sapi feature should be removed. but this should just be an optional thing if you wanna use sapi for that or the screenreader.
I'll recommend you to give the demo page a try, so you can see for yourself what I mean. You can start out by the most known languages: German, Frensh, Spannish, and then the other languages just to see that things are getting even more worse and funny.
Please note: That's of course only my opinion. I'm sure many people still will enjoy the game very much if they are forced to use sapi.

Thanks for the ideas, SLJ. It'll be very helpful in the event we aren't able to get the translation feature up and running in time for the release, in which case we'll have to decide how best to handle things.

Hi,
I can't get to the combat demo, it says link not found at the moment.

@fabi
Don't worry about translation, they really are doing the best they can to make it posible, i've talked to Joseph by e-mail and he was very kind and quick to answer my questions regarding that, and i guarantee that they're trying to make it posible.
I'll send you a watsapp message in a few minutes.

@Joseph. sorry, haven't listened to the kombat demo yet, i'll do it now. but i want to say it again. thank you so much for providing us with repplies, coments, tiny bits of info, in the end, all of this is better for yourselves, and for us! keep it this way!!

Hello,
@joseph: thanks, The link works now, and I've had a listen to both demos. All I can say is, wow, I will definitely be picking up this game when it is released.

A suggestion for another demo.  What about item management? Purchasing, browsing, equipping etc?  Regarding that, is there a way to compare a newly found item to equipment that is already equipped?
Thanks!

Hey, great suggestions for demos. I'll definitely think about those. Regarding item management - there isn't a way to compare items you're picking up to items you have equipped right as you're picking them up - but you can compare everything from within the equipment menu once you've picked it up. I'll probably do a demo of this if I get the chance, which should help clarify what I mean.

Regarding the city question - Farhaven is the only city you'll visit in the game, as the plot of the game revolves around exploring the lands immediately surrounding Farhaven to help break the recent siege of the city. But there are a number of different locales to explore outside the city.

Thanks for the info!
One more quick question regarding the spells and leveling system. Do you learn new spells and abilities through gaining levels or must you purchase them or the more you use them the more you learn?
Thanks.