I was interested to see the video.
Interestingly enough I was doing work today for my own ethics research on representations of disabled characters. One problem, which sadly the "blind hero of an audio game" trope is following, is a lot of literature featuring disabled characters always feels they have to make the disabled person super awesome and their disability as the central fact about them.
This is particularly bad with blind characters, they fall into the Jordi laforge syndrome, where the fact that they are blind is really the salient part of who they are and makes them either A, a super awesome ninja assassin (who isn't really that blind, or at least never has trouble being blind, the random force user in Rogue 1 was a prime example), or B, they're super useless being blind and talk about how they love to "touch things" and "smell things" and how "just because they're blind they still "see life as beautiful" (nice to know the ghost of Tiny tim is alive and well).
There is a direct refusal by so many authors to disabled characters generally, and very more specifically blind characters, characters first , blind second.
So while I personally don't mind the idea of a blind protagonist, make him a protagonist first, blind second.
maybe he's a bit of an arse hole, maybe he's suffering unrequited love, maybe he's got some moral quandry, he's got a desire for revenge, hay maybe he has an insatiable liking for cheese on toast, ---- oh yeah and he's also blind!
Of course being a computer game and an rpg with a distinct goal in mind, combat mechanics, levelling exploring,finding items and all of that good stuff, there is a limit in terms of presentation, but since in your video you mention taking time with actions and consequences, the narrative of the story and providing a Cyoa direction for events i thought I'd mention it.
Oh, and I've written all this and not talked about gameplay? Oh yes,I should probably do that .
In terms of gameplay, one thing I'd love to see is an audiogame which actually works on what has been made before.
I can think of a hole bunch of projects over the years, the somethinelse games on Ios, Blind side, a blind legend, blind swordsman, HeartRead going right back to The blind eye and terraformers in 2005.
All of these were attempts by developers of graphical games to create audiogames and all generally ended up doing the same thing, creating an audio environment (usually first person), with obstacles represented in audio, obstacles which the player either had to avoid, or counter, usually by hearing, centering and reacting quickly.
this is fine as far as it goes, but each of these projects had essentially reinvented it's own wheel.
Audiogames are so little known outside this community, that everytime someone comes to matters anew, they need to go from scratch in discovering how many aspects of gameplay, audio beacons, centering of sound, need for ability to sidestep etc work in terms of navigating, and many of the challenges they present are rather similar to one another.
Thus, what to a developer who has no experience of audiogames previously might seem to be a "dynamic combat system" might to an experienced audio gamer simply mean the same "center and shoot" mechanics as previously seen. I indeed recently had this experience with an audio demo created by one of the students of game design.
this certainly isn't to discourage anyone from creating audiogames, far from it, the more audiogames developed, and more complex those games the better we'll all be pleased, however it would be nice if prospective developers took a look at what had been done previously, had a play of existing audiogames in the category of game they're developing, and then tried to build on what had come before, than coming at completely afresh and creating something which, while a lot of fun and undoubtedly superior in sound design (such projects tend to be), and worth playing for that reason alone, either has fairly major gameplay holes or frustrations that could've been addressed by examining had and had not worked previously, or, a playability and difficulty curve which, while steep to someone inexperienced with audiogames, is a rather familiar one to those of us who play audiogames on a regular basis, and thus instead of moving the hole development process forward and raising the bar just leaves it where it is.
I'd therefore encourage you to please play some of the games available on this site, try them out and maybe see what works and what doesn't and how to incoorporate working mechanics into The Vale, or indeed better mechanics that have not worked in the past.
As a rough suggestion, Swamp, Aprone's Multiplayer first person zombie survival shooter is the new benchmark for first person games in audio, while the previously mentioned A blind swordsman provides exceptional use of combat mechanics.
The very recently released (just a month ago), A hero's call made a huge impact on audiogame development, being probably the most fully featured and cinematic audio rpg we've seen, and therefore something not to be missed (I need to sit down seriously with it myself), while Manamon provides a great idea of how to tell an audio story, create complex menues with information organized enough to manage a full index pokemon like creatures and! tell a slightly darker story into the bargain while not getting too bogged down in audio navigation beyond simple top down mazes.
Bockerano Daibuken 3, though a side scrolling game, provides a good grounding of how to create complex combat in an audio scenario, while Castaways by Aprone includes a great idea of how to manage audio real time events and a great many complicated factors (complicated enough for a city building map assigned jobs).
There are other games both myself and others on this forum could suggest taking a look at for one reason or another, but either way hopefully this illustrates the point.
i'd love to see a new game developed which built on what had come before, rather than simply retracing old ground.
That will also help in appealing to a mainstream audience as well, since if you can get mainstream gamers beyond the "hay it has no graphics", and into the "hay that is a really cool game mechanic, oh and btw it has no graphics either" then all the better, indeed it's a very similar point to the above mentioned issue with blind characters.
And now methinks this epistle needs to come to an end .
Whatever you choose to do, I will reiterate that I am very much looking forward to hearing more about the game, and indeed playing it when released.
In fact I would be willing beta test myself, if occasion arises, and perhaps consult via telephone as well (I'm always up for more rpgs).
With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)