Hey, thank you for the feedback! While a lot in Houou ga Gotoku came from my experience (as the writer), Tsuki ga Gotoku did not. I'm a lesbian, sure, but what Tsuki ga Gotoku deals with I did not have to. I did my best to try and understand what it's like, did my homework, ran the story by some people. I'm glad it worked out in the end and I did my homework correctly.
I also believe that the VN genre can be so much and more, if you just think a little bit outside the box.
The reason Mokou cuts you off and progresses towards resolving the story, is because there are hidden triggers in some of the dialogue options. I believe if you read everything outside the love dialogue, Mokou cuts you off. That is intentional. Houou ga Gotoku had a similar system, where certain dialogue options made Mokou drink, and the more drunk she got the more open she got about certain topics. To progress to the ending of Houou ga Gotoku, you needed to hit a certain dialogue option that got unlocked by getting drunk. A lot of people complained about this, because it was kind of unintuitive and sort of "forced" the players to read everything in order to progress. This time around, I made it so Mokou cut you off and progresses straight into the ending. It's still not a perfect solution, but it works much better I think. Next time around, I might make it so that you get cut off, but have the option to loop back around (unlocking the dialogue option to progress to the ending in the process).
Yakuza, as weird as that sounds, was a huge inspiration for me while working on this as well as Houou ga Gotoku. These are obviously very different from Yakuza in terms of gameplay and story structure, but... well... Yakuza is a crime drama series. It's about tough guys doing tough guy things. But at the same time, these games manage to capture the rich inner world of these characters, their emotions and their feelings towards one another. I wanted Houou ga Gotoku, and now Tsuki ga Gotoku to capture a similar sort of vibe. You have these characters that are definitely strong and tough, they definitely haven't gone through their lives without doing some morally questionable things. However, they are still people at the end of the day, with thoughts and feelings, wants and emotions. I hope I captured some of that.
...and well, spelling mistakes are to be expected when you spend like 1 1/2 weeks drafting a story and then 1/2 week crunching down to get the words on paper lol. Sadly I did not have the time to get someone to proofread. I'll try to patch these out when I get the chance.
Anyways, I’ll pass on your praise to my fellow teammates. Thank you for playing!