Hello, Leef6010. Ever since I tried Project Kat, I knew you (two) have something special on your hands and kept you in mind as the next "big thing" in so dear to me RPG maker-esque genre. Playing Paper Lily Demo strongly reinforced that feeling.
[MAJOR SPOILERS ahead]
Reception:
I loved everything about it:
Lacie is spectacular, from her charming, sharp lines to her portraits, which hit the perfectionism spot for me with how cutely they are done. In fact, all characters are done so well, each leaves a certain impact.
I loved the running gag of pointing out how Lacie is good at things: dodging spikes, passing through solid steel bars, dodging knives. And a gag of cutting things' names short: camp(fire), (lamp)post, (fire)place and such. I loved how I thought it was a mistake that "Lacie" is saying the line "You hear something unlocking in the distance" only to realize I've been played a click later. I loved how while I thought "Do you have any runes?" foreshadows a future mechanic, somewhere in a different timeline I would've discovered that saying "No" while having them shows a unique threatening Rune sprite. And how Sai saying "They aren't just lying around" was my mentality and "They kind of are" was the truth. I loved how the reward for defeating Miss Knives without Sai in the party is the smug value in a few of Lacie's lines. I loved how terrified I was to realize by the end that I have actually encountered Kat on my journey, in whatever state she is. I loved laughing with my friend in a discord call about how from segment to segment we keep gaining and losing items without ever finding use for them, some transferring to next segments, some mysteriously disappearing on their own. I loved the way the characters' laugh is presented. I loved wondering why is the calendar stuck in March, what did the nighttime letter mean, who is Lilith, wondering just how much does the line "Sometimes, you get stuck with no way out" imply. I loved discovering small details upon replaying the game, such as Hiro suggesting to tie our hair, realizing the visual implication of Lacie, well, catching the bus, a freaking secret dungeon prisoner calling Red a little b*tch, etc. I loved the fact that you've got plasterbrain on board, her affiliation with RPG maker stuff is greatly appreciated. I loved how essentially the game has a morbid story and takes place in a horrifying setting, but has a comedic, upbeat, comforting mood, with layers of mystery to go with it. I loved the 15cm door frame. Among other things.
Suggestions:
Not much from me here.
-During minigames, my non-gaming laptop lagged just a bit, so I didn't realize controls aren't supposed to be wonky. Perhaps you can sneak in an advice to reduce Ingame Resolution to 1x (helped me a lot) into game over lines or something? The default one seems to be 2x and works well, mostly.
-I must say, I failed you big time. On my own, I only found ~6/17 coins, 0/4 runes. So many of them were hidden behind parts of scenery, as it turns out! I tried to search around as meticulously as I could and thought that probably the demo won't have much hidden. Only thanks to youtube videos, I realized how wrong I was. I can't complain, the characters were dropping hints every now and then, though to be honest, with the amount of things hidden behind objects, I wish Red Tree wasn't the only push of my attention in that direction (I thought it was scripted for an item to appear behind the tree). But as someone who couldn't for the life of me figure out project Kat tutorial room alt solution, I'm probably not the difficulty scaling worth adjusting to, lol. Now when I think about it, the amount of things that had unique lines when inspected from behind should've encouraged me to discover stuff. My bad. I guess that's not really a suggestion, food for thought at best.
Bug report:
I wanted to provide an extensive bug report (not to complain but out of sheer love), but the amount of variables in the game is a bit too much to tackle, and I wanted to give at least something before steam release so maybe some of this will be of some use as is:
1) Typo?
I'm not a native speaker, and I'm sorry if I'm wrong, but I imagine you meant to write "chosen".
2) Locked camera.
When going from Bus Stop upwards. I didn't have this issue on first playthrough (v1.0.2), have no idea what causes it, tried out different actions before entering, no difference, the camera is just locked (unlocked when reentering), I can provide savefile. If you go further enough offscreen, the camera gets a few centimeters upwards, but remains locked.
3) Unintended primal encounter.
In 1.0.2 when I left the left door and went to the middle, I got run over by a primal at a Looney Tunes skit speed. Judging by how simply loading and not changing anything allowed me to pass through, I'm going to assume it was supposed to happen under different circumstances.
4) Others:
-Idk why, but on my first playthrough I've encountered an actually problematic glitch. Entering the correct phone number during the night didn't progress the game, it wasn't accepted. I tried reloading, didn't help. Either relaunching the game or taking a look at the phone during the day (never checked it before the night at first) fixed it, not sure.
-When I loaded and replayed the ending(1.0.4), the camera got moved to the right during Sai staying alone in the room segment for some reason.
-The Plant that wants to try Alcohol keeps requesting it after us getting the Lock pick. Patch notes mention that multiplying Jars was fixed, but I can still do that by watering this plant. Perhaps that's caused by having 2 versions installed? Unless that is a part of other alt solutions shenanigans I'm missing out on or some clever allegory on alcoholism, which I wouldn't put past you, that's a bug.
P.S:
Lastly, I just wanted to say that I will be more than happy to support your project. The prospect of you not finishing it is gloomy, and due to political situation in my region, I might never actually get my hands on the merch, but despite all of that I still think investing into your kickstarter will be entirely worth it.