I like it! The amount of polish in what is not a short piece is impressive in the context of the game jam, and it's nice to read something where you can just focus on the story instead of mentally nitpicking presentation issues or wonky sentence structure. Every aspect works together, and the writing has a fun welfare state decadence vibe to it.
A lot of the game's appeal is in the fun formal gimmick that is, despite a couple of weaker points I will get to later on, an effective way to use the medium. It does mean that there's a lot of pressure on the assets to work, since the reader is looking at them not as something obligated to be there but as the centerpiece of how the subjectivity of the characters is conveyed, and I'd say Stars In Your Eyes largely pulls it off. The backgrounds are quite moody and the spritework is nice, although the rabbit's ears feel slightly off in a way I can't quite place. There's a lot of attention to detail in the sound design, but it does feel like a lot of the subtler sound effects are mixed pretty low; given the subject matter, I think there would have been a case for emphasizing them a little more. Also, the accessibility features represent a respectable amount of effort put into something often ignored by VNs.
I think my big criticisms boil down to two points. First of all, the tone feels somewhat uneven throughout the game, especially when it comes to dialogue. The character voices are quite stylized – these guys are willing to have some pretty abstract philosophical conversations on the spot – which, while not a bad thing by itself, kind of clashes with some of the rawer parts, especially the caps lock yelling. For that reason, I think some of the most emotionally heightened scenes could afford to be dialed down just a little.
It may also just be that the plot is thick with melodrama in a way that threatens to overshadow the generally enjoyable mellower sections (like, uh, the panettone jokes) and the ending. Some of the things the characters have recently gone through just feel so overwhelming that it's hard to focus on their relationship and what it means for them to have met each other now.
Second, how the POV switches are used feels a little haphazard and disorienting sometimes. There's enough to read that the game could be more deliberate with the device while still having time to showcase both characters, and it doesn't really feel like there's a rhythm to when the perspective changes. Also, this kind of character drama derives a lot of its tension from the friction resulting from both the POV character and the reader not being able to tell what the other person is thinking, and I think some of that is lost due to how generous the VN is with cluing you in on their thoughts. It feels like we're giving up one source of interpersonal conflict and not necessarily replacing it with anything as compelling. All in all, the idea is really good, but the execution comes off as too careless to do it full justice.
I'd still call Stars In Your Eyes a very good time, and in particular likely one of the most polished audiovisual packages in the jam. The reviewer's cameo is not nearly tacky enough, though, as nobody even mentioned How it goes or told the main characters to read New World Symphony...