full disclosure i played this A While ago (maybe a few years? God Damn it's been a while.) and finished it, and then i decided to revisit it recently after remembering it <3 (when i first played it i identified as an alloromantic ace, and now i'm aroace <3, this is only slightly relevant to the comment)
1. Did believing you could play this only once impact how you made decisions?
not really since i usually go with my gut when first playing then explore other routes as i replay, i just played as i normally would without the intention of restarting the game (until recently. <3)
2. What do SAL and Ash look like in your mind? Did you mentally assign a gender to either or both characters?
i pictured ash as chubby with messy red hair, around their mid 20s? i imagined sal as a 90s computer with a text to speech function for some reason <3 to me ash was nonbinary and sal had a more feminine persona due to their programming, but was neutral towards the concept of Gender with reference to themself. this ai can fit so much gender in it <3
3. What choices did you make? How did your game end?
we talked about sal's logical understanding of their relationship and i ended choosing to take my time to make a decision <3
4. What did you like and dislike about this game?
the characters are really cool and it was really cute seeing them play off each other <3 i also really liked the choices presented, all of them had very sound logic and it was easy to see how sal would have come to that conclusion. the narration and character voices are also *chefs kiss* the bit about little syntheses and destructions was really beautiful :'D
it was also pretty cool to see my feelings being reflected in this game (in retrospect this was the aromanticism) i'm not entirely sure if it was intentional but it was definitely very nice to see :D. i also liked how there didn't feel like there was a specific "good end" or "bad end", there's no judgement from ash or the narrative in terms of deciding where to go with the relationship <3 ummmmmmmm i don't think i really have any complaints really <3
5. How did this game make you feel?
6. Do you want to see these characters again? What would you want to see in a follow-up?
yeas. no. maybe. i don't know. i feel like this game works best as a standalone but i wouldn't mind seeing these characters again <3 i feel like a follow up would be hard to do though orz (i think interactive fiction with different routes runs into this problem in making continuations, where you either have to a) account for all the choices a player can make which is. a bitch to code. or b) make a specific route quote unquote canon, which can undermine player agency)
7. What predictions do you have for SAL and Ash's relationship? Where do you see it going?
maybe it's just me but whenever a story ends i can't really imagine what happens after it? dhfjgkdfhg like i'm usually pretty bad at picturing "after the story" scenarios unless there's an epilogue. to me sal and ash will always be in that state of limbo thinking about their relationship. Somewhere Near Romance, you might say *credits roll*
8. Any other things you want to mention?
i played a few of your games after finishing this, i really like your writing, especially ladykiller needs a twine and lore distance relationship <3!