THIS IS SUCH AMAZING WORK OMGGGGGG!!!!! I can tell you guys put TONS of effort into this! I've been playing visual novels for over a decade now, and I'd say most of my free time is spent playing them. I gotta say that this is the first game to do such cool and amazing visual effects like this! This is true art at its core, I found this not only very innovative and unique but also done so WELL at that. You guys' visual effects almost made the game in itself feel extra dimensional...like it felt as if it truly tapped in to the "viewer's eye"; essentially like the audience's screen and the Z-axis plane of the screen and made them a part of the world you created. Not in the sense of something like VR or being "isekaid" but just the frame of the screen itself, my laptop monitor, being a part of the narrative experience. Sorry if that's majorly confusing, I hope it makes sense lol. And there were also multiple layers to the visual effects, which further added to the dimensionality. (Like the vignette and the circle overlay and the superimposition, etc.) I just think it was really amazing that you guys were able to make something so immersive. Hats off to the coding and graphics that deserve some sort of award. Like honestly, there is no VN game I've found that's just like this out here. Honestly everything was so perfect, I was thoroughly creeped out and I was blown away by the writing, voice acting, art, characters and music as well. The often thankless and unseen work of the editor, marketers, and the multiple directors can't be ignored, and I give them acknowledgement as well for a game well done because without them, it wouldn't be the same at all!
This is kind of a side paragraph, but I thought it was really cool how the infection manifested its own defense by causing her hallucinations and not allowing her to seek help. Really cool and artistic portrayal of science. I actually do find it really cool in general how processes that happen in the body can genuinely manifest/be interpreted by our body in such ways. (For instance, hallucinogen drugs...how the body goes through a bunch of different things to process those drugs and how that scientific process somehow causes our minds to interpret visual hallucinations. Or how something like ASMR, where the mind interprets sound, is "translated" to give physical comfort down your spine. Like how can sound waves do that lol?!) I think it's cool how the mind interprets things and it's interesting to imagine that something that would infect the brain would also be able to craft its own defense like this.
Saved best for last what I was most excited to speak about: Like someone else mentioned, you wove together so WONDERFULLY the themes surrounding family, love, loneliness into the horror/conflict here...I can tell you would make an amazing long game if this is what you were able to do in such a short time frame. I watched a video essay recently where someone discussed that the horror genre in film is their favorite because it's truly the best for weaving in deeper themes as such and do well at showing character development...After playing this, I completely understand what they mean. It's interesting to see how the character has to overcome their inner turmoil first in order to beat the antagonist in horror films, and I feel like that same structure applied to this game. You can take the conflict at face value of her attempting to rid herself of this illness and still enjoy it. You can also take it as the MC having to face herself, face her fear and loneliness, trying to make peace with certain things and learn to express her emotions again. I think an even longer game outside of jam constraints could've gone more in depth with this too. But you truly have amazing character development skills to be able to showcase all of this in such a short time frame, and with such good pacing too which is very difficult to have in the first place with normal time constraints, let alone within a jam's time constraints.
I'm just...wow, so incredibly amazing. these sorts of unsettling and depraved games are my favorite type and it's even more great to experience a yandere-like character. I can gush about this game forever but I think I've went on enough haha. Just really wanted to share with you guys how much I enjoyed what you created. I really hope you all have future projects that you will be working on because I can't get enough! Thanks for sharing your art and vision with us here! You guys should definitely get some sort of award for this game lol.