I have MANY thoughts on this, but they are all my personal opinion.
I see a game with so much potential, it clearly has a lot of love in it.
I think the 1st person angle (having it being narrated by the mc) makes things tumble when stuff happens that isn't supposed to be heard or seen by them. It can be hard to ignore that, for example, Mc is the one narrating Ren's bad experience with the cashier and later still thinks they may like each other. It also makes things seem slower cause it feels like mc takes quite some time to process stuff.
I have a bit of a problem with moth's video call. It's framed to interact with moth but enforce the idea that mc does not know moth's face, yes, but having been video calling an internet friend for years and them always aiming at the ceiling is just...?? took me out a lot. It would feel less unnatural if a videocall isn't brought up at all, maybe moth is shy and never shows his face so mc and him have only calls (no video) or he has a very old cheap cam, like, I can count the pixels on screen cam, to make it easier to disguise his appearance a bit. I think other options could work better to make interactions with moth feel less... forced by plot?.
Leon seems to be presented to be the more calm and perceptive friend, but in the date his actions (not as much his words) come up quite rude, pulling at your friend's arm taking them away from their date is really out of touch (unlike telling your friend that you are a escape route, that is good perceptive friend! I liked that). It feels like everyone is portrayed quite over the top to show Ren's reactions when it doesn't need to be so, worse case maybe is Teo.
Teo... makes a couple problems I have with the writing shine. Every second of his interactions with everyone took me out by the simple idea of "why would they keep this person around?". We all can understand the idea of having a friend who is a bit crass, a bit rowdy, but Teo is just awfully mean every single time he opens his mouth. He can be a friend that is crass and sometimes steps over the line that Ren can react to. For example as his confidence crashes seeing how mc reacts positively to something he can't embody with the character he chose (I can't be kawaii boy and a vulgar crude rude dude at the same time!) he can have an outburst that, in context, can be justified by anyone cause hey, Teo was being a bit of an *hole anyway, without Teo being an awful person.
And the little end of paragraph hearts confuse me a bit cause I think it is the intonation lol.
I understand this is a demo, but Leon talking like he knew about Ren when they ran into him and Mc's date came out of nowhere and really confused me, just like if Mc's fixation is referred as a web comic, a manga or an anime and what it is called.
I mean no harm with all that, it is only my perception of stuff.
With that out. Wow I would have never thought that something as small as having the character portraits blink would make a game with this mechanic feel SO MUCH more alive, that and the small "surprised jumps" and the sort make a kind of.. static experience feel way more dynamic, it is a great touch.
Wasn't expecting so many character portraits for a demo, that is so cool, so much work!
Love that Ren trows a bunch of things at the wall to see what sticks, trying to mold himself to Mc, dressing like her favorite character and so on. I really appreciate that a bit of his tattoos can be seen (under his clothes and covered by make up) just as the remnants of snake bites, and the hoodie that implies he had a waay different style (maybe the kind that would wear all dark and chains and know to pick a lock?).
All in all... I want to see what this evolves into, maybe I end up not being the target audience, but I can see this has a ton of love and wish it the best.