Still Yiming from ISECAI here, just following up from our team's ming101 account.
"Success at a cost" is so much better at growing a story than just stalling out after a failure—that is so true haha. Wanting players to end up talking about what happened instead of flipping through a rulebook is such a clear goal. We’re also testing ISECAI, a free web AI anime academy RPG driven by free text, and I'd love to hear if you think the choices and consequences keep you invested. Down to try a short bit of the opening? If you're interested, I’ll drop the link and a unique code right in the comments.