I've just finished the 0.55 version and I felt like leaving some comments.
As a computer engineer who has been willing to specialize in artificial intelligence, your work was really gripping to me. I was immersed and hooked to it. I couldn't relate more to the MC and the story.
Your story hits the spot. I have a thing for goddess characters and, just like you, I enjoy powerful girls. You wrote a mind blowing story that contains my greatest tastes for fiction: AI or stuff that involve futuristic or advanced technology and supernatural (the supernatural world, goddess and angels). Also, you even mix magic in it.
I also could relate to the MC, not because he might be a computer engineer or AI specialist as well, but because of his personality. My personality is not that extreme cold like his, but he does have many features that I have. I think that your character development was decent in general.
I confess that the prologue (or just the non-sandbox part) got me rather emotional, feeling like about to cry. I have never felt like this while playing any game before (I said any game, and not any VN!). I found your story so sad! I won't elaborate more on it because it could leak spoilers, but while I was processing all the current situation and everything that had been happening in the plot, I found it was too much sad!
I didn't like that it had been turned into a sandbox game. I know that you had your reasons for doing that, but I still don't see the need of it. Also, I think that a sandbox game is more laborious to you than non-sandbox.
I also see that you are building up some harem here... I wonder if Aisha would be okay with that.
About the girls, they are all stunning. They are all attractive. Beira and Hilirika are my favorites. The appearance you provided them is on point. But... Dude... You really are addicted to writing sad stories, aren't you? So is Yukinari going to pass away? We won't meet her again? Not even the child will be presented? I don't want to believe that you introduced her in the story just to kill her that easily... She is a nice girl and I have already created emotional ties with her (but the MC isn't like that, I know). I wish to spend longer time together with her in the future. About Beira, I disagree to the way she was treated. Her story is also a bit sad and I also hope to spend longer time together with her, putting a smile on her face.
Ai is a sensational character. Her powers and lines translate much of the creativity you have. I would never imagine something like that, reaching a godlike level like she reached. It is satisfactory to know that such powerful and close character is always together with me. It feels... Comfortable, if it is the right word to describe it. Ai is a wonderful idea.
Your game is impressive and I had fun. I want to play the future updates and follow this game until it is finished, and I might also follow your future new projects. However, I have read some of your posts and you seem to be unmotivated to keep updating this game. That's sad and there is nothing I can do about it. I hope that you won't call it off and will finish this game, I really want to see the end of this story. You are a good writer and the universe you created is entertaining to be immersed in. Thank you for developing this.
Dude, you got an amazing game here. Top quality stuff available here. Amazing job you've been doing!
Your strength is the plot writing. You know how to tell a gripping story, picking the right words for that. Not only that, you also really know how to build a satisfactory character development. It is hard to find VNs with as deep and complex personalities as it was presentend on Crimson High. Before I install your game, I wasn't expecting it to be so immersive. What called my attention was the tone of mystery with perhaps some horror elements that this game seemed like to offer. These factors got me curious and made me install Crimson High (and yes, the fact that it is a NSFW game also counted. I was looking for that).
After installing your game, the first thing you tell me is that there are few H-scenes and they are far between, however, the closer I get to the girls, the more frequent the H-scenes would be. This is exactly what I wanted, a NSFW game which is story-rich, where the intimacy really counts. It is more like the real world, more natural, no artificial stuff. By the way, VN games exist to be story-rich, with a natural pace. Novel is the keyword. It is a pity that many devs forget that.
Your game is gripping. I was hooked to it. I finished the 0.27 version (if I am not wrong) two days ago, still, I cannot stop thinking about it. When I finished the chapter 3 (I believe that my meeting with Uraha was the end of Chapter 3), I felt some sadness, because there wasn't more content (you hadn't released 0.28 yet). It is not usual for me to feel like that after finishing Ren'Py games, but it happened to me when I finished yours.
The girls are beautiful. I don't know whether you used an asset or you created them (I don't know how Koikatsu Illusion works), but they are attractive. It is just that at the beginning I found the characters slightly weird for being too tall or there was something different about their faces or body proportions (I guess that Miko was the first one who transmitted this sensation)... But it wasn't a big deal and I quickly learnt how to like this design or style. Also, I am not sure, but have I seen other Ren'Py games show teeth all the time? I don't know, but it is still okay. As I said, the girls are attractive, and Suzu happened to be my favorite. She is a keeper. I want a marriage route with her XD.
Jun is weird... I know that she is over 18... But her appearance (and immaturity) does bother me :/
Nene also seems kinda young... But it is acceptable. She looks decent for the game. Now, about Jun... I would skip an H-scene with her. Just doesn't feel right.
About all the other girls, they are perfect in the way they are right now. They are gorgeous, hot and fun to be around. Kana is my second favorite, by the way.
Even though I had a lot of fun with your game, I'd like to point out some things that made me scratch my head:
Too many characters: Too many new girls introduced in too short time. Quantity is not quality. I'd like to have more opportunities to deepen my intimacy with the main girls first (which are already many). Let's calm down a little and allow the main girls finish telling their life stories first. While I could be kissing Nagisa due to our strengthened intimacy and progression in her storyline, I am wasting time with Kiri (who is a pain in the a** and I am not interested in learning about her) or I am starting everything from scratch with Quoth, for example.
Scheduling algorithm: There is a non-circular round-robin scheduling algorithm running, whose purpose is to make the MC spend time together with each girl until her time slice is complete. It is a smart way to manage your story with such high amount of characters who are important for the main story's progression. There's nothing wrong about that. However, what makes me scratch my head here is that I developed affinities. For example, I don't like Okami and I kinda don't care about her storyline. I am not interested in her. I would like to prioritize some girls, you know? Go deep into Nagisa's storyline in my own pace, for example. You could ask me who I am preferring at the time. Based on my response, you could anticipate the storyline from the girl I chose. I am not saying that I have to finish her whole storyline at once, but at least I would progress with her more, also increasing our intimacy. It would take shorter time for me to unlock the first scenes with the girl I seem to be preferring at the moment. However, I think there is not much you can do about it and it is also not a big deal. It just feels that it takes too long time for me to progress with the girls who I am interested in.
Jun: Come on, you know what I mean :). But yeah, her storyline is quite interesting and I am looking forward to meeting her Nana, instead of wasting time with Quoth and those three girls group (Aya, Kiri and Chiya). Don't get me wrong, though, I want progress with Quoth and Aya, but let me learn about Nana first, it looks more important.
The main objective seems missed: So... Didn't I join the police to figure out about my deceased mom's case? Isn't it my life purpose now? Shouldn't I be acting to figure out who the murderer is? Except for the very beginning of the game, my mom was mentioned just once, while talking to Uraha for the second time, if I am not wrong.
Is everybody playing dumb?: Okay, so I get heavily injured on the head, get completely healed in 1 day, vampire blood makes me out of mind, I have super strength while feeling mad, I resist Suzu's ability and make she turn into "new sister", I can have telepathic conversations with Kana and Kagome and there is no suspicion that I am a myth? Not even the MC starts to doubt whether he is human or not?
Some things are far-fetched: The idea of hiding too many mythical races from humanity for centuries or milleniums is too far-fetched. It is an awesome background for a nice story that you are telling, but it is not convincing. But I won't focus on this part. Suzu living at the school is also too far-fetched, considering her origins. Of course her family could have more than one house and not everything was burnt. Of course she could have gone to the bank agency earlier. Of course there are more members in the clan she belongs to.
Those points I mentioned are just little ones and didn't really harm my game experience (Except the Jun part). I enjoyed the game and had fun. The game is way longer than I expected and it is good. Your writing skills are just impeccable and are helping me to improve my english skills. I see that you released 0.28, but I won't play it now. I just can't. I don't have time. But, I will certainly play your game again in the future to see how it ends. When you finish this game, please, don't stop on it. Create more projects.
I follow other pretty nice projects here on Itch, but all of them are no complete yet and take time to release a small update. Meanwhile, I look for games with as good quality as these I follow, but I fail miserably. If you stop creating these projects, you would be missed for sure.
For those who don't want to waste time (Chapter 2 - Day 8 during afternoon, after meeting Kuro and Morrigan while they were drinking and while paying pizza).
Honestly, I think it sucks when game developers who work alone (it is not a group and not a studio, it is only one dev taking care of everything) start a new project without finishing the first one. The current project is already laborious and takes time to be updated, why would you start a new project without finishing the first one and divide your office hours, making the first project take longer time to be complete?
Don't get me wrong, this game looks quite interesting, however, it is convenient to follow the queue (First in, first out).
Edit: The first project feels already pretty delayed in plot due to the rework done before. The rework's plot hasn't yet reached the instant the old's plot was at.
Well, if in this world of magic it might be possible to revert some damages caused at some important characters (I am trying not to give spoiler) and might also be possible to separate the personalities within a certain shattered girl... So... I really hope it will also be possible to separate the twins :) (the girl one is too much adorable).
Don't get mad at me. Most of your Android users will soonly get new phones with updated Android versions and will no longer play your game because of Ren'Py's trouble. Few years will pass and simply no one will play your game on Android. However, if the gradative loss of Android players is not harmful for you, so alright, you've chosen the right path for you and I understand.
I'm quite curious about the mysterious merchant. I mean, I know that there are plenty of games (Resident Evil, RPG games and others) where there is a merchant wearing clothes that cover the whole body, making he or she look anonymous. Yes, on these games, the merchant is just a single-purpose NPC, which the purpose is to just sell and buy. However, there is something slightly different about this mysterious merchant on CK, I can't exactly point my finger on it, though. It seems that she knows more about the MC and the secrets of the game's world than I (the player) do and than she is letting out. Also, I don't know whether it means something or not, but her background music is kinda... Unique? Different?
Maybe she has something to do with 25's prophecy...
I've come here today to ask you, Arcadean: Are we going to learn more about her? Is she going to have a fundamental role during act 3? I mean, yes, she is just a mysterious merchant, but she seems to know too much to be ignored, not mentioning that she also has powers and seems to be too dangerous (she turned men into her horses).
I suspect she is a multidimensional legendary fey :P
Sorry, she just caught too much of my attention... Perhaps she is just a side character like the summoner and her pet.
Having trouble to publish this game for Android? Try to talk to Arcadean, he also developed a heavy Ren'py game and his Android version is just wonderful.
What's your Android version? If it is 11 or higher, then no Ren'py game will run on it, unless the game's developer decides to update the game's Ren'py version to Ren'py 8 (TheArcadean, the creator of Corrupted Kingdoms, is the only NSFW game dev on itch.io who has updated his game to Ren'py 8).
For some reason, Ren'py (version 7 or lower) is not suitable for Androids 11 and higher. There is an inner bug that causes memory leaking on Android, buffer overflow or something like that. The problem is too specific and raises a unknown exception, making the Ren'py game crash right away.
The Ren'py 8 was released, being suitable for latest versions of Android (Android 11 and higher), having this mentioned issue above fixed. Also, the Ren'py 8 is the first Ren'py version that supports Python 3 (yes, they decided to start to support Python 3 after longer than a decade of Python 3 existing).
In a nutshell, there isn't anything you can do except for waiting the NSFW game devs update their Ren'py versions to Ren'py 8, and most of them actually doesn't care about that... So... Yes... There will be games which you will never play on Android anymore.
I guess I understand... So... Specifically for Android, which renpy version is it?
I ask because renpy games don't run on my device, unless their renpy version are 8.x. I did play your game before and enjoyed it. It would be a pity if I couldn't play anymore...
Well, honestly, I am not a Python expert. Neither have I ever learnt anything about Ren'py... But I suppose that the modules/libraries you use would no longer be compatible? But isn't it just updating their versions, though?
