Okay, so wow. This game was such a gem and I HIGHLY recommend it if you like realistic romances. It has some twists to it that definitely don't make it your run of the mill dating simulator, and the three routes felt extremely fresh. It is kind of assumed you will go through all three routes and so the repetition between all three is pretty minimal. All the characters were extremely likeable when they were intended to be, and it felt like a real server in so many ways. You could tell there was a lot of care and attention put into crafting these online personalities, as I felt like I had met similar people in real discord servers. By the third run you I ended up caring a lot about these characters and felt very invested in the server. Overall this was a fantastic experience and throughout my ~6 hours of gameplay (I was so hooked I basically played this until 4AM..) there was never a lull, the game kept me engaged throughout. The humour and writing was incredibly on point!
Gameplay-----------
This was one of THE most engaging UI's for a visual novel I had ever had the pleasure of playing. Exploring the server features, entering video chat, being added to hidden channels was a really exciting experience. I spend almost all my time on discord and I was surprised how giddy I was at something as small as using bot commands lol. The pacing of this game is excellent and none of the parts overstayed their welcome. The intensity of the gameplay is pretty much entirely dictated by who is in the chat and how active the server is, and I love that there are times where everyone is online and actively typing and others where it's a little slow and you get to know some of the server members better. There are also some nice twists and turns by the time you romance NakedToaster and those were really refreshing. The gameplay and UI never got old to me, and the OST had no right being this good.
Story-----------
If you play this game the way the devs intended (recommended) you get an initial two options: a young, immature romance and a heavy mature one. I ended up being unintentionally locked into the immature romance first and knew right away as I was going through his route that this was a bad one for me. I felt all the red flags come up for codependency and some toxic behaviours and and ended up failing his route the first time because of it. I was blown away by how realistic this character was and how this game really didn't shy away from going there. In my second run I was successful in getting the more mature romance, and right as I thought things were calm and chugging along, BAM! I was hit with a huge plot point and that this route would not necessarily be 'easy' either. I was totally taken off guard and never had expected this game to go to this *totally different but almost equally as realistic* place either. I love that it made me question my own code and morals and I either had to jump ship or double down. I was so glad I did double down and it was an extremely rewarding romance, with a lot of depth because of it.
People don't come to you in life as perfect little dolls waiting to be romanced by you. They have their own lives, histories, ambitions and this game was really successful at reflecting that. I went back to complete the first failed run and then went for the third (now unlocked) romance and it was a really endearing experience. I'm really glad I went through the romances in the order I went through because it built upon itself really nicely, and there are so many juxtapositions between the first two that make for compelling character writing. I would say out of them all the mature romance was my favourite, which seems to be the common view here.