Thank you for the feedback! Yes I am an old school Infocom junkie from way back so it’s great you picked up on that. Stepchild started in Inform 7, then Varytale and now SN. The castle was the first area I made so I was learning as I went. If you play further you’ll find I have started condensing areas greatly. It took the castle to show me the limits of what could be done. I did want the castle to feel vast since it has been the entire world for the player til now.
I understand that the mechanics are cumbersome due to how the system works. It has actually improved since Alexis gave us a clear hand exotic effect so the game can skip that card draw. That was the most frequent instance of what you describe so I hope it’s improved. I will reply again when I’m on a real keyboard.