Thanks for playing! When I made YBR, I thought of it as a movie and less of your average visual novel. My main focus was on creating an atmosphere and an experience, rather than focusing purely on love interests.
I use Ren'py.
I've been working on the game on and off since 2017 while working on Pulse Cage. I started working on it exclusively in 2018, and came out with the demo in 2019. Then I started making a Game named Diary after the demo came out, to give the demo time to be seen before dumping the full game on people without much demo recognition. Advertisement has been difficult because it does take time away from making the game. I wanted to release the full game in 2020, but it hadn't reached the 500 download milestone yet, and I wanted enough people to have played the demo before working on the full game again.
Thanks for your question!