THAT WAS SO GOOD!! I just played the game a few hours ago, it was so fun, so interesting and mysterious and still even after playing all routes, leaves open questions (which was intended on your part and leaves us hooked even more). Even with being a scaredy cat I'm glad I played it! After I was finished I'm still left with interest and questions and then immediately started googling about the title of the game, the flowers and the yellow king to maybe understand the story even more. And now after knowing about your inspirations with this work of Chambers, I'm even more appreciative of this game and your work and the story!
Edit:// And you completed it in 10 days?!!? Wow!Oh okay yeah, oh okay!"//
- Spoilers ahead -
The way you incorporated the fictional book itself in the story with our MC picking it up, then the elements, motifs of the work of Chambers within the actual story we played. So cool! Like with MC reading the book within our story, so the story within the story that was also a theme of Chambers work. Then like the characters in the work of repairer of reputations, the first Act was described as boring by them, but the second act was the reason Hildred caught interest. Or the whole unmasking thing even though that was a bit confusing :D. I'm also assuming that Aster is the stranger or at least the iteration of the stranger where they are the same or the stand in as the yellow king! Then also the name itself explains the flower we see on the home screen. The titan arum also pretty interesting being the corpse flower because it smells like rotten flesh, and the spider lillies being in the text bar. So amazing! I've known about spider lillie's meanings and symbolism but the rest has been new info for me! Learned so much today :D thank you for that as well! Speaking of the gui! I love love LOVE, when it changes after routes have been played, or a secret route has been unlocked. The way everything changed after unlocking Aster is so cool: from the main menu, to the choices options, the text bar and even the save/load window!
Yeah but I'm still so curious now, bc the different routes feel like playing different realities ig? Like in Theo's route Bartie has been dead for years, whilst in Oscar's route the cat was seen, touched and saved by him. Even hears the yellow kings voice? I also thought that maybe Aster was the cat, but at the very least there's some special connection to it. As it is kinda central and even part of the Aster we see in the main menu!So yeah the cat is still a big mystery to me. Why was it upstairs the whole time, why did MC not go upstairs and check after it. Where is the family? Like in one reality (?) it's as if they are dead/have been even killed by the protagonist? In the other they are on vacation? Then the book, in Oscars route they hate it, in Theos they love it. In Oscars route she was basically a sobbing mess when he came, whilst with Theo the horror started days later.
The question still stands not only for the MC but for us players too: what is real and what is fake? It's cool how you incorporated this one theme of The Yellow King as well: the reader of the book within the story going insane after reading the book. I suppose that's what had happened to MC? But yeah it's still like even after being saved from the house, the MC still connects to the entity. Or you have them thinking about how it is real. Or Aster talking about that this can't be what MC truly wants. It makes one think, are the endings that happen with Theo or Oscar real? Or was that orchestrated? Is our MC lying? Why do we still get the glitching with some of the ending sentences?: "Wasn't it night?"; "Is it real?" (omg now i have to think of peeta noo my baby ToT) in Theo's route. Or "His mouth crashes against yours" and Asters words at the end in Oscars route. Bc before their conscience was probably overwriting things, like with the towel being pink bc of the washing machine etc. but why would it overwrite or our MC lie to themselves in those situations at the end... //But yeah that also ties in the whole unreliable narrator trope that also was in the yellow king, is a popular trope and which I just saw was the theme of the jam you made this game for!!//
After writing this as if had an assignment due xD, all that's left to say: Thanks for your work! And yes the dudes were incredibly attractive and yes I'm now going to the short stories you have published for the three, as well as reading what other players have theorized about in this comment section *_*!