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What facial expression and body language would Noah respond with to the player wordlessly pinning him down against something and leaning in close? Would his eyes be slightly wider only in that situation? Would he stare directly or avert his eyes (thank you for already having given him a sprite like that), or even his face altogether?

Sorry I'd rather not use tumblr. Usually I wouldn't make contact at all, but this devlog post tempted me to ask. ¬///¬ If it's any compromise, you could copy/paste the above question and any response to both here and your tumblr so others still see it easily.

I still haven't actually played this since having immediately supported it because I've been waiting in hope for the expansion, particularly customisable outfits because I insist that he grow his hair to at least a few inches past his shoulders as a Prince before he deserves a playthrough. (Untied. I can't enjoy it if it's all out of sight and reach... Not that I'm expecting my silly whim to be acquiesced.)

Live2D is drastically underutilised and although I'd still be after him growing his hair, non-customizable Live2D might at least be a passing amusement? As long as you're quite sure it's worth your time and effort even if only for your own satisfaction, the scarcity of Live2D in otome might gain some traction I suppose.

Not to disregard statistics because they do matter to some extent (particularly hours of play, more importantly hours / word count per route), but above all else for me by far my values are the quality of the writing and whether or not there is at least one character ticking a lot of very, very specific boxes for me. Massive bonus points for features such as His Point Of View scenes/events/recaps (DLC?), and the extent of customisation for the personality dynamics and behaviour of the protagonist to influence events to play out in ways that most media would typically never go down the path of. For example, avoiding silly conflicts, or having matching personalities instead of opposites attract or other types of clashing, and especially having combinations of 'unusual' personalities and how these uniquely influence interactions. In fact, having choices offer options to speak through actions rather than words is one of the most effective possible interactions to me, especially if there are multiple actions. Even saying and doing nothing whatsoever is brilliant, just to see character reactions, especially if this is more effective with some characters than others. This game's visual protagonist customisation options also tie into this. These factors are rare and valuable to me, so I would be much more likely to pursue these aspects even if the game was to lean more towards being comparably short and sweet. There are one or two certain studios whose writing style, character designs, character personality and relatively few but extremely effective CGs have me absolutely running to them and actually make me wish they would charge higher prices because they deserve it despite the short hours of play per game, their content is that amazing to me. (Especially because it's extremely rare for me to have any interest in more than one character's route in an otome, so that is absolutely astounding on top of the quality.)

On that note, hours of play should probably not be forcibly elongated if it isn't a natural fit. As I'm sure we're all aware, that just becomes a slog for developers and players alike. In a similar vein, I would much rather have multiple routes (a la 'stay' and 'non-stay' routes in Alice in the Country of Hearts to co-inhabit or visit a character) for a handful of high quality characters as opposed to being swarmed by an onslaught of orbiters I can't abide. Of course this also shouldn't be forced. (I have yet to find time / work up the courage to try this game's demo so have been lurking all this time simply observing the development logs, but I'm sure these characters are perfectly bearable, and it's always good to give players options. Admittedly, using many character roster slots to get the vanilla usual suspects out of the way ultimately gives a better chance of me liking one of them if developers eventually hit that point of "Well, what kind of guys are left? Throw everything at the wall.") Also thank you for offering the option to have playthroughs without being forced to latch onto anyone. This is generally ideal and especially useful here in waiting it out for a route you actually want. When it reaches that point, I'd be even more willing to pay higher for what I actually want.

Apologies for the wall of text and congrats on reaching this point. From the development logs alone I can see the effort you're putting in, hang in there. Above all else, absolutely charge a higher price than that. From what I can tell you have definitely earned and deserve more.

Impressively well-written, every line is so informative so efficiently in a quaint old-timey dialect, the heavy topic is carefully balanced and accentuated by much-appreciated humour that always hits and is very endearing to characters that are already very likeable and whose roles are a great, varied portrayal of pretty much every type of person that could be in this situation and really do feel like their own individual with thought processes that are well-founded. Elfriede is a lovely, silly yet smart protagonist and a breath of fresh air in the otome genre, or any media for that matter. Revolving the story around the instigator to the south is also a refreshing way of handling a topic many are familiar with. Uniquely charming and thoughtfully crafted.

The deluxe preorder displays now, thank you. I knew I was right to not give up on you guys, even though you're enduring an especially gruelling development hell. Hopefully everything will work out with getting a new writer for Guillam. If it doesn't I'll settle for his CGs with zero context. Yes, I am that thirsty for him. :P I actually prefer Yuuya's personality though so I'm sure I'll love the game whether I get to faceplant Guillam's mad pecs or not.

I tried checking through all the official marketing and updates to provide evidence it was changed to Steam-exclusive but couldn't find any, though I swore I had read something officially saying that... I'm not the type of person to say something like that without solid confirmation, maybe I got mixed up with another game...? Sorry, this is very unlike me. This site says we have access to the files from here (or, y'know, at least the Standard Edition... hopefully that'll get sorted or we'll be able to add the mysterious extra $2 to the original price of the Special Edition we already paid for), so I must be wrong.

This game is definitely in development hell but I still have complete faith in Team Precatio. It'll take a long time but I'm willing to wait. As long as we do get it, someday, to at least the same standard of quality as the demo, I'll be happy. In the meantime I can stare at Guillam's mad pecs.

EDIT: Ahhh, I went through all those pages of updates and all I had to do was scroll down a little on this page... h-hahaha, sorry, here it is, in fact they told you directly themselves, I guess we both forgot.

I have the same problem as Violette. Censored my email, so it should be fine to post here.

I guess it should be fine since the full game will be Steam-exclusive (which I prefer anyway), but I'm the type to worry endlessly about every little thing, sorry just wanna make sure I cover all my bases.