itch.io

“It’s another thing to claim the story needs touching up because you personally don’t like the colour combo or the MC being kissed”

At no point did I state these things need to be done or changed nor did I act like it was objective, in fact I specifically used language such as “in my opinion”, "This felt", and “I cannot see how”, these are phrases to highlight how these are just that, opinions, this is for me as you say a personal criticism. Even in the dictionary, criticism is based on perceived merits and faults and are subjective, reviews are almost always inherently subjective. 

I’m confused as to your comment, everything I stated is an opinion, and you’re allowed to disagree with what I say as is the developer. I am well aware as a developer myself that they have no need to even read my response, and if they do they don’t need to action any of the things I do have an issue with in the demo, the developer has that choice as it is their product and then it will be my decision to decide whether it is worth the cost. There will be people who love the things I don’t, such as the kiss on the first day of meeting Luke, that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to talk about them or mention them, the same way you’re allowed to respond to me not agreeing with me, I never acted like my opinion somehow overrides anyone else’s.  In fact I'm stoked for the developer that people are already this excited for their game and I hope the traction continues for them!

Looking at the comments I am one of, if not the first person to bring up any form of issue, demos are both about sharing the game and player feedback, that’s the point of them, like I say the creator can decide the things I don’t like are things they do like and/or want to keep in their game for whatever reason, I was specific in making sure it was worded in a way where it was clear that this was opinion based, and I wasn’t mean. People having issues with a product they might buy in future is not inherently hateful or mean simply by having issues and talking about them. But thank you for being respectful in your response!

I love the game so far, the UI is amazing, the lore is intruiging, and I like the characters, but I do have some issues.

1) The english is this game is, honestly, not good. There's broken english, unnatural phrasing, and bad grammar all over the place. This is by far my biggest criticism of the game. The bizarre and sometime outright bad choice of words really throw off any kind of mood trying to be built, and in some instances completely ruin the pacing of scenes. I have a feeling this is machine translation, but you really need to get an english proofreader to iron out these issues and make it flow correctly. Hell, I'll do it for free. For example - The fight with the kidnapper where he says "Don't think I won't fight back!" being unnecessay padding for what should be a fast paced action scene, female lead thinking about her PTSD and cursing that it's come back when she's meant to be on the verge of a panic attack seeming unrealistic, the sentence after Luke leaves where female lead thinks about how she's anything like a bunny being worded weirdly, Dane calling us "Sillyhead", just off the top of my head.

2) Shoehorning, another thing that leads to pacing issues. The worst instance being the female lead's flashback to her parents murders. This felt so unnatural to happen at the moment it did and felt like you were just trying to shove the information in for us. Please remember this is only a demo, we don't need all the information right now, even for our own character, we can get hints! This is a visual novel, show, don't tell. We can fill in the blanks and information can always be introduced more naturally later on - for example a flashback during a conversation where we as the main character open up to the male leads.

3) Dane and Enox need looking at in my opinion.  Dane's colour combination with the current saturation just doesn't look fabulous - His eyes are way too bright for the rest of his colour palette, I would probably suggest desaturating them or darkening them somehow. And I noticed on Enox's in game sprite there's a weird line on his neck which makes it look like his head was pasted on the rest of the body, the lines don't meet up correctly and the shading is odd, it just looks wrong, like they were done as 2 separate pieces and merged together.

4) Why is female lead ok with being kissed by Luke and Dane? In her own mind, she only met them earlier in the day, even while panicking, I cannot see how she would have no comment about this?

Overall, a good demo! With a bit of refinement, I think this could be ok!