Alright I guess I have to be THAT GUY,
I'll start off with some praise, I came in with no expectations and I left intrigued.
that's all I'll say for now in terms of positives, for now let's talk about the issues.
now when it comes to AVN's there could be a plethora of problems that can kill a game (for me at least) for example the dialogue can be sub par leaving you bored out of your mind and waiting for something to wake you from a boring slog thru a simple interaction, or maybe English was the dev's second language and you have to extract information from spliced together lines that somewhat resemble English but don't really.
another could be pacing, where the story is going full throttle from scene one and leaving the player in the dust desperately trying to figure out who's who what's what and just saying "F#*K IT!" and going and doing something else.
basically normal story issues, this game doesn't have those don't worry. It has something worse!
If you have spent any time on this site in the adult tagged section you'll most likely have come across a certain game called Eternum, this game is very popular and for good reason some even going so far as to say it is the best AVN.
this game to put it nicely want's to be that game, I don't blame the dev. I too would want to make something as beloved as Eternum, heck the game has even influenced some story's of mine that I am working on!
However Eternums inspiration on this game is it's weakness and why I can barely enjoy the game.
saying it was inspired is putting it lightly, saying it was influence would be missing the point, saying this game borrowed from Eternum is a gross over simplification.
this game is borderline PLAGERISM! so much so if Eternum's dev sues, he would have a good chance at winning.
look I'm not one of those guys who hates something because it's a ripoff of something I like, I have played I watched many a game and story the borrows heavily from other stories/games but still manage to make something awesome, but this..... this is pathetic, the starting scene's are so hard to get through because I'm too busy being reminded of Eternum to enjoy this game.
look I can overlook superficial element's of the game, we have the not Eternum cast with Not Annie with her sister Not Penny and their mother Not Nancy guest starring Not Daliah with a special appearance from Not Alex, that I can forgive. There are a lot of games with similar characters and archetypes to Eternum again not even I am free of the sin of unoriginality especially with Eternum.
(also Not Axel appears)
but to bring forth my actual problem let me say this, DreamLink use's Eternum's story to hold up it's own. AND THAT IS A CRYING SHAME!!!
you see Noctus I enjoyed your game I actually did, once I got past the intro it was mostly smooth sailing. the dream world as a plot is fascinating and puts me in mind of Bloodborne, the character's have enough chemistry to make me emotionally invested enough to care when shit was about to hit the fan AND make me disappointed when the end screen hit!
this game has an original plot that I'm interested in but I have to slog through the bit's of Eternum that were lifted from the game and that annoys me it reeks of a fear of originality of taking risks, the same fear big entertainment companies grasp on to that fuels all the unoriginal/sequel/remake/rip-off garbage we see today
in spite of my dislike of the intro I pressed on hoping there was an original game in the copycat and there is, it's just hiding behind the copycat using it as a crutch.
please stop ripping off Eternum and make an original story that doesn't have to use someone else's story as a crutch because I guarantee that will bite you in the ass in the long run,
some advice from me is to redo this section, not scrap all of it and start from scratch but redo the "Eternum like" scenes so that way you can make the story more your own
I might stick around if this goes in a more original direction, I am sorry you had to hear some hash words on your first project, I applaud the fact you even made something like this which makes me envious!
also if not Axel turns out to be Taylor's brother I won't hold out any hope for the future