I am INCREDIBLY smitten! Oh my goodness what a lovely little story! I was never 100% sure what was going on, but I didn't feel totally in the dark either, and the concept is FASCINATING.
Even with the darker theme, there were so many heartwarming moments. [Also funny ones, I adore Fanny.] Peyton is just such a refreshing character in his simplicity. Very sweet, very patient, very attentive, but he never crossed into pushover territory. It never felt like he was a one-dimensional character, his dialogue was incredibly smooth and thoughtful and, even though it's a shorter VN, his and Phebe's relationship developed very organically to me. She gradually relaxed around him, it didn't feel abrupt or rushed because of how her responses changed slightly with each day.
The portrayal of her emotions was very well done, it almost touched on unreliable narrator territory just because of how little she really understood about her feelings. I felt like her anxieties and discomfort were conveyed so well, without her having to actually verbalize any of it, just by how she spoke and the way her expressions would change.
[The sprites are SO expressive by the way, Peyton's soft smile made me actually squeal the first time I saw it.]
The writing in general is also just very beautiful to me. The poetic repetition, the callbacks to certain phrases, the nightmare sequences are some of my favorite scenes purely because of the use of prose, the descriptions were surreal, it very much gave the impression of being strange and dream-like. I have aphantasia so I can't picture things, but it set the tone for the setting beautifully. Every morning after one of those nightmares, I would also feel a little uneasy, I kept waiting to see if something outside the farm had changed or gone wrong. The atmosphere was incredible.
I took notes while I was playing, so I could keep track of the things that I found particularly interesting, and it felt like the word choice for specific scenes was noticeably intentional. I like that a lot! I write in my personal time, so I know how easy it can be to just throw synonyms around to avoid using the same words over and over again. With this story, though, it felt like there was a lot of intent behind certain phrases used, I really do think the wordplay was incredibly thought-provoking.
When you describe dead flowers as CORPSES, you have my immediate attention LOL
The soundtrack is wonderful by the way, I didn't used to play VNs with sound on because I tend to get a little overstimulated with a lot of noise, but lately I've been making sure to keep the background music on so I can better immerse myself in whatever mood the writer is trying to set. The title screen song SLAPS, and occasionally I would just tab out and kind of bop along to the general BGM.
Most of my notes are just me screaming about how precious and sweet Peyton is, I wasn't expecting to gush as much as I did since he isn't the type of character I gravitate towards. He was so conscientious of Phebe though, I loved how gently he interacted with her, I loved how he recognized that she would never be the one to call him out, so he took it upon himself to bring up his own mistakes/motivations to clear the air. Absolutely the sweetest man, I should have attempted Hugh first because I don't know how I'll recover now LOL
The resolution was so bittersweet, gonna be honest I'm petty so I didn't want to see the old man get a happy ending, but for Other Phebe it was nice to see her be able to rest. I love the notion of using the butterblue flower as the new core, and I love that it was even hinted at in the journal that there could be something other than bones used.
Speaking of, the set-up for the mystery was also very good. I don't think I was handed too much information too quickly, I did manage to guess what was happening early on, but I didn't get the specifics correct and there were other details I wouldn't have EVER been able to figure out.
And Phebe was a delight as a character, I genuinely enjoyed reading her thoughts because her perspective, the way she looked at the world is so unique, it was interesting. Having a unique lens like that for a character to view the story through I think adds so much more to the experience, it's like there's an added layer of the mystery to sort through. I liked having to stop and think about her word choices for a minute, or certain reactions that I couldn't understand right away. Just a very engaging character overall, even though one might not think so at surface level.
Evocative is a good word to describe this VN, I think. There was so much packed into the few hours I spent playing, I know I'll have to play it again now that I know what's going on just to see if there were any other hints that I missed.
A beautifully strange, memorable experience! I mean that in the best of ways. I look forward to whatever you work on next, and I'm definitely going to go back and look at the other games you mentioned in the authors notes!