Still playing since the end of BAF, will add comments little by little.
EDIT: finished! I was just a few scenes before the end! Didn’t expect it to end on cliffhanger, but should have, considering how long and deep the full story seems, and that my own work ended mid-battle too! (well, it wasn’t supposed to, we just messed up with planning) So I’ll just add a few comments.
Story
- interesting setting. I’ve been playing a few games with an “ark” setting, it’s interesting how this seems to be humanity’s last stronghold yet localized somewhere in Eastern Asia with people coming from a few different countries from there. I noticed the same with Astral Chain mainly featuring US and Japanese names, probably because the Ark must be in the middle of the Pacific Ocean - and to be fair my own entry Spirit Link uses the same process where “East” and “West” is in fact very localized. It makes it easier to deal with fewer groups and fewer disparities, although the amount of differences varies between stories (in Astral Chain it’s all international as it’s humans vs chimeras, in Consummation it seems that the group to which you belong now matters more than your origins, while in Spirit Link conflicts between nations are prominent)
- most characters are cool (in the sense of down to earth - stylish too I guess), there is nobody overreacting, the child looks normal, so it’s quite enjoyable
- near the end of demo, the MC mentions avoiding troubles with the law. It surprised me, I assumed she could go farther than that - but I do understand why breaking a window would cause a commotion and possible retaliation. If the character in the intro is the MC then they also were an assassin, but I cannot confirm this (or maybe they just settled down since).
Writing / UX issues
- in the cross-union meeting, if you didn’t remember where each group is (Pool table, Corner tables, Bar counter), it’s hard to tell where you should go. It would be easier if the group present + key character name was written, e.g. Bar counter (Birds, Juhyeon)
- in the cross-union meeting, after talking to Kageyama, MC reminisces the past on a red background, but it’s a bit long and repetitive with weird sentences (and some typo). Shorter text mixed with worrying textures and sounds may have been another way to convey remorse with more variations
Art/Promotion
I looked at the banner several times and couldn’t tell if it was the same character featured three times with different color eyes due to magic power usage, or three different characters. This time I looked more closely and noticed differences in eyelashes and eye shapes, so I played the meeting scene once more and could identify each character based on eye color, and even eye shape. However, it wouldn’t have been easy without knowing the characters first.
In fact, the fullbody character sprites are very different, it’s just that close shot means no body pose nor clothes visible and so we can only count on a few facial features. It’s not really your fault as the characters have Asian origins, with black smooth hair (that don’t go crazy) and same skin color, and from here a flat character art style won’t help showing striking features - yet you managed to distinguish some eye features. Maybe it’s just a case where showing a little more around the face would help. With more “budget” I suppose you could have dedicated promo sprites with different view angles (rather than reusing the VN character sprites) therefore making the differences obvious.
The character who appears at the end doesn’t look MC in the eyes, maybe it’s just their style… ?
I noticed many characters have an androgynous look and I think they’re pretty cool (instead of having exaggerated Yakuza & Ane design).