Thank you so much for this lovely review, it really means a lot to see you enjoyed my writing and characters ;___;
The way Kaiser and Solaris' dynamic is built is that both of them want to be loved, but neither of them want to admit it (initially) for different reasons; Kaiser because he feels like his job and role requires him to put up a brave face of sorts (and accidentally ignore the entire communication aspect of it), and Solaris because he kind of just... is too reserved to ask for attention most of the time. I wasn't sure how to fit the entire, "opening up" part into a short word count (because oops! only started work 2 weeks into NaNoRenO), but I'm glad it came out well. I wonder if Kaiser being the one to offer his hand first came off as a good hint that he wants to be intimate?
I'll be expanding on this more in my post-mortem/"the making of" devlog but the initial concept for the game all the way back in October 2023 (wow) was that you'd be playing as Kaiser and making various conversational choices to have Solaris open up. There would have been multiple endings and the choice to offer his hand would only be available/not grayed out on the route to the best ending, when both of them are fully comfortable with each other. As you can see the scope ended up being cut down to a short-and-sweet kinetic novel, but I think it's better off that way considering the jam time limitations.
The hand-holding scene made me blush as all hell when I drew and programmed the expressions + the dialogue into the game so I am incredibly satisfied to see it have the desired effect on you ^_^ The relationship Kaiser and Solaris end up forming is very sweet and does take a romantic direction further down the line, too. I'm not sure what kind of game I want to make next but I really want to include these helmetboys in my works more going forward!
Once again thank you so much for playing Inside Out!!! I'll definitely try to play Monochrome Pixels when I have the time as well, it looks absolutely stunning and has an insane scope for a NaNoRenO game! Good job to your team for finishing it too!