so i'm not technically done yet but i'm at the beginning of chapter 44 so i think i have seen enough to comment on how i'm enjoying it so far.
if i am to try and sum it in just a couple words i actually think this game is great honestly. the start is pretty rough i'm not gonna lie the characters are so emotionally fragile that a stiff breeze could break them down into a crying fit. the descriptions of the main cast felt mostly like a "look at me i'm a rebellious teen i smoke and steal and have this tragic family life that no one understands." and in general felt like the emotional beats were rushed .
the best part about the beginning honestly is the tongue in cheek feel any time CJ's dad shows up. and i'm actually a bit sad that that cheesiness disappears entirely at some point cause it mixed some levity to some of the heavier moments.
if i were to pin point the big points it gets better at story wise i would say the first good arc was the one focused on jamie and became fantastic around the one focused on leah. the lore of the world is actually really cool and feels like it ties together really well.
it's funny in the sense that as a porn game it's kinda meh with a couple pretty hot still frames but nothing that really speaks to me to much in an erotic sense. but as a just straight story that just happens to have erotic elements attached to it it's actually pretty great.
the characters still feel pretty vulnerable emotionally from start to finish but the later parts feel much more natural and there is good reason for it. while it starts off pretty cheesy over time it actually starts to lean more and more in to an almost Lovecraftian horror feel without the tentacles.
carpo in particular gave me a very hastur the king in yellow vibe and i'm not sure if that was intentional or not. the back story for each girls parents in every arc are just good stand alone short stories honestly but get even better with how they tie into the main one. i can really appreciate how things can be painted black and one at one point and then later it gets so much more complex that it really makes you think about how you might have reflexively hated someone before .
reading this you can almost see how a writer improves in real time as each chapter gets better and better than the last. so much so that it's hard to even believe it's the same person at the start to where i am now.
to be honest it wouldn't shock me if the author started this either in highschool or fresh out of it with all the stuff that screamed rebellious teen energy and what feels like a fair amount of anime influence with jojo in particular being a stand out. and then as they spent more time as an adult that maturity bled into their writing over time.
this might be a bit incoherent to read as it was mainly me just dumping my thoughts out into this review as they come to me. i'll probably be leaving this for chapters to stack after this arc cause i kinda don't want to get caught in a mid arc cliff hanger.
to anyone reading this and thinking about playing this game i would say its pretty rough at the start but if you stick it out for a couples hours it's actually really freaking good. and with how short the chapters are at the start you might think this is much shorter than it actually is cause somewhere around the 20's to 30's the chapter will frequently be multiple hours long.
and to the author congratz on making make such a great game and the only real advice i have is to try and fit some more levity here and there. obviously it's important to keep a consistent tone at some points but it can be almost mentally exhausting to the reader if there is a constant tension to it.
i won't even try tell you how to fit that in cause i know there so much that goes into writing well from pacing to developing characters, fitting exposition in without it just being an info dump. it was just the feeling i had while reading like i enjoyed everything happening but the good moments like when the main cast was turning the tables or them just getting up to silly antic was so short lived i almost don't even get the chance to breath it in before the tension of danger or drama rears it's head again.
again your doing a great job and i'm excited to see where this goes and i got full confidence i'm gonna enjoy whatever comes next.