Thanks for playing!
I think is probably my strongest entry to this jam (although Shattered still has a certain magic to it), so I find it reassuring that it's your favourite so far if that makes any sense. That it ranks high among the entries you've played so far is high praise I did not expect.
The story seems to be the best received part overall. I was surprised how well it came together and how well some of the later changes worked. Then again, story and storytelling was a focus area this time around. The diary was an early idea I had, but making it central to the game was something that kind of came about later. I had expected it to kill the pacing, to be honest, but that turned out not to be the case.
Although I didn't see a problem with it myself, I've heard a few complaints about the edgy, coarse language filled dialogue. I'm not going to promise future games will be milder, but the overall style and tone will vary from game to game and with it, the style of the dialogue.
The ending is abrupt because it was kind of written and implemented in a hurry. It should have been longer, it was going to have more options, and some of the dialogue was not quite there, but the clock was starting to run out by that point.
My audio is always a random mishmash of stuff from Freesound, OpenGameArt, and some other free and commercial packs. It's usually done in a hurry and works pretty well, but one of these days I'd like to do a game with exceptionally good audio.
I do wish the environment models were more consistent in style and polycount. I could probably have thrown some money at the problem, and maybe done a little better with more time.
Lily's pathfinding and getting stuck on Sakura are known issues. Pathfinding is basically nonexistent but usually okay in open-ish areas; one of these years I'll solve that general problem (knock on wood). Getting stuck on Sakura I thought was rare enough that it would never happen in practice... I forgot about Murphy's Law. I thought I'd fixed the continuing to move when hitting the hospital, but apparently I'd missed that. I'm not sure why the staring at the sky thing happened, but it certainly could. I don't actually remember if the hammer thrusts things, but it could put Sakura into her Hurting state and she might move when reentering her previous state.
Back in the first MGGJ, I spent the first week on Shattered without any plans on anything but the story sections. I knew I wanted some sort of other gameplay, though, because it seemed like such a tease to describe awesome magical powers without actually letting the player use them. That being said, I'm considering doing a more pure visual novel for MGGJ5 so I can focus on improving the dialogue system without having to worry about making the rest of the game.
I have tentative plans for a third entry in the series (not counting Takagi), though I still only have very vague ideas on what the game will actually be about. I am trying my hardest not to become Valve.