Sorry it's taken an entire month to respond to all the lovely things you said >.< I was just away from my PC and all my project stuff for all of June while I focused on the 30 Days Wild challenge. I did read everything you wrote when I got a chance though, I just wasn't able to actually sit down and say anything back until now x3 I hope you ended up having fun with Yandere Heaven too in the end :D And not much has changed since then because this game still has the lowest number of downloads by far xD I just checked the analytics and it's on 440 total downloads! The next lowest is the ELI version of Love in Lockdown at 1743 total downloads. Yandere Heaven is somehow my most downloaded project at 15.9k total downloads despite being my most recently released game O.O I dunno how that has happened, haha. And poor Limbo Line, which I personally feel is my best project so far is only on 2510 total.
I really appreciate the fact that you took the time to write such a meaty review of this one anyhow :D It means a lot, especially so when it seems to be my most unloved release, haha.
And heck yes, it's great when other people notice the small details and stuff in a project! I tend to spend probably too much time obsessing over tiny details, but they make me happy, so meh x3
I hope this one managed to stay your favourite after you checked out YH, haha. As much fun as I had making YH, I put a hell of a lot more time and effort into A9. To the point that by the end of the jam, I felt like I bloomin lived in that damn apartment with everyone xD
Psychological stuff is very much my jam, haha. I used to play a lot of the romance otomes myself, but over time, I started to feel like they were becoming a bit hollow to me. Same sorts of stories, same sorts of characters, same sorts of romance >.< And I just wound up a bit disillusioned with them. It's annoying because I love me some cute romance in the middle of a story, but I do prefer it to be somewhere in between what a lot of otome games offer and what you get in something like Mass Effect. With Bioware games, I'm always left wanting a little more romance than you get, but with otomes, I end up wanting a little less romance and a bit more attention to overall story x3 I probably sound so picky T_T haha.
I feel honoured that you'd give such high praise! I mean, I can't take 100% credit for the story idea since it was heavily inspired stuff, but I tried my best to do the original idea justice while adding plenty of my own original ideas and such in there to create something else.
I'm glad you like the art as well. This version of the game wouldn't have even been possible without the help of my good friend who created the art for it because I didn't have any assets that would work. I'm a huuuuge fan of her art style :3 She puts so much emotion and small details into her drawings. I still can't belive the sheer level of incredible art she managed to creat for Limbo Line, and again, that project wouldn't have been possible if not for her, so I owe her a lot :3
That's a relief to hear that you didn't come across any plot holes because that's something which is always in the back of my mind, haha. While I do write a very rough sort of outline for most of my stuff, 75% of the finished script comes from pantsing xD Which I feel always leaves it all rather vulnerable to plot holes! I do my best to try and fix anything I find, but sometimes it's easy to miss stuff when you're looking at the same text for so long >.<
I've always had a soft spot for the more messed-up sorts of characters that you come across both in fiction and in reality. Though, in reality, it's more of a morbid curiosity I guess. When I was a kid, my parents got me a book on serial killers as a birthday present cos they knew how much I loved watching documentaries on them xD And I remember watching Disney films as a child and always being fascinated by the villains, wanting to know more about why they wound up the way they did and stuff. So yeah, it's a lot of fun to create and explore characters that have a darker side :3 I'm so glad I came across visual novels, because before then, I didn't even know what a yandere was. They quickly became my favourite sort of character type alongside yangires, haha.
I remember playing a game a few years ago where the story changed upon replaying it, and it absolutely blew my mind x3 so I thought to myself, I've really gotta try my hand at that sometime! It was a bit of a nightmare to execute when my coding skills are practically nonexistent. Though, I finally know now how to fix the title screen for accessing different menu options and such, I just haven't updated the game with a fix because it would take so long to export and upload it again for something so small >.< I'm really hoping it's something I can implement in some of my other projects too, because as you say, it's pretty trippy, and it's something that makes me smile whenever I come across it as a player.
Please don't apologise anyhow x3 Like I said, I really appreciate the fact that you took the time to write everything that you did :3 As nice as it is to make the sorts of things you enjoy making and see them come to life, it's equally nice, if not more so, to get any sort of feedback from folks who have taken the time to play through something I've put out there. Reading what you wrote made me smile. It really does mean a lot ^-^ So yeah, thanks again for everything!