GOSH, thank you so much for leaving such detailed and thoughtful comments, Esbi! 😠I'm very touched!!!
LOL THANK YOU REGARDING THE DOCTOR, he is based on an amalgamation of experiences I've had over the years 😂 so I'm glad that he ended up realistic, as I was afraid he was too cartoonish! You absolutely nailed his character here - how he treats Yumeko not as a person, but a prop in his fantasy. And I can't compliment Michael's work enough, he ABSOLUTELY sold the Doctor's fragile arrogance in every single one of his lines.
And your analysis of Yumeko is very interesting, and very on point - the Doctor, of course, never gave her the information that she needed to become a "person" - an individual with preferences or desires or feelings. He made her so that she would love him, and so that he could love her in return - carving her existence entirely out of how she relates to him. So she is "empty," unhappy with her situation but not knowing enough about the world to distinguish WHY she feels that way, or what she actually wants/could have.
THANK YOU, in general I'm a bit of a "writing heavy" dev, and I always thought that I don't really take advantage of the other aspects of games that really make VNs a unique narrative tool. I've been trying to take more advantage of those aspects, in particular the art and GUI (I was actually very inspired both by chim's "The Daughters of the Sun" and "High School Lolita" when I was making this, as his usage of the sprites and GUI was very inspiring!) (Your complaints about the horror imagery are very fair 😂 in general I love horror but I know my skills aren't quite up-to-snuff, so I worry that my horror games aren't quite "scary" enough 😠I did struggle a bit with trying to make the scares varied and interesting enough to keep the player hooked throughout the game's runtime.) I'm glad that you enjoyed the "perfect Yumeko," I did have fun coming up with that concept ðŸ¤
Again, thank you for taking the time to play and write up such a long and thoughtful analysis 😠I really appreciate it!