There’s a lot of discussion in regards to gameplay and puzzles. I don’t think I’ve seen a single comment about the characters or the story.
Is the demographic here simply not interested in that?
Oh no I think they are great I like all of the characters and the story so far is interesting. I would say that it just feels like there is a lot more to discover with the puzzles. I think the lore is very interesting as well especially the stuff you find as you explore the dream world. Yuri is very fun with her snarky tsundere behavior. Kari is rather interesting (and worrying) with how she has her own dark secrets and her attitude toward the MC. Nanami is cute but I feel we need a little more time with her tbh. As for the MC I do wish they commented more on stuff, that would be my one gripe. I get that they are probably meant to be player character but I honestly think it would help if they commented on stuff in the dream world too.
One thing that I am really intrigued by is the fact that I believe the MC's dad works for the company involved with all the dreamworld stuff so I am excited to see how that plays out.
What story? There is significantly more gameplay and puzzles currently then story content. It's not like we even have the whole story yet anyways. The only story we currently have is Find Kari, Find Yuri, Talk to Kari and Yuri about Nanami, Go to mall with Kari, Meet Yuri at Mall, Meet Nanami at her job, The Sleepover, and Yuri's Nightmare. The journal is blank after that. We know next to nothing about Nanami before or after the sleepover. I don't even think that the player can even interact with her at all since the player can't talk to her at her job and I can't find her at all in the school. Kari basically just wants to turn you into a woman. Yuri wants to help you turn back and actually has an interactive follow up scene but the player has to go out of their way to trigger it. Rin disappears after your encounter at the Outpost saying you shouldn't be there yet. The characters we know the least about are Rin and Nanami and we don't have any ways to interact with them. Rin is one of the hardest characters to try to interact with since you have one time encounters that have massive green bar requirements to unlock dialogue options. If you don't know about them ahead of time, which why would you given that this game is supposed to be difficult, then you need to load an earlier save or start a new one just to further interact with them.
I agree with VocalRhapsody mostly. I liked what story I have experienced so far.
What's given has been good- up to the forest part and the festival of life, where continuation of the plot requires submission of the character to these things happening to him, and I much more liked the dream world tricking him into furthering the plight placed on him.
I'd love to be more drawn to the story, but at some point the player isn't guided through the offerings of the game and they're just sorta cut loose to wander about vaguely through the lore without any promise of story progression.
Also, the puzzles are really tough- and at some point you're more guided to them through curiosity of how the pieces interact vs a promise of exploring the plot.
Tldr: I like the plot, but based on how you referred to the game as Yuki Nuri's Nightmare(i don't remember the name) it might just be the sacrifice of choosing to make this style of game.
I've been a fan of the characters' dynamics and the direction you took since I happened upon your 'spin-off' as you call it, I was actually disappointed when I couldn't find the main game after completing Ukuzala. As for this game, the puzzles for Coffee Story just got us early players distracted by their complexity and as a result it just so happened none of us even considered to type up an actual review. I also don't think I've really seen under any game I've tried on this platform where someone posted a real concise review before. I usually only see those on games which have already launched on Steam.
It's my opinion that for a recently posted game, it's already a very well thought out and written product. Yes it's lacking in actual story quests in its current state, but no one expects a homerun with a game that's still under development. There's already tons of lore that collectively create a story and for the player to discover and ponder on, but I'm also aware that each of the characters will have their story lines expanded on in due time.
My hopes is that in future versions you might consider incorporating the option to, through a special sequence of actions, access and spend time in the other characters' dreams. Not just during a quest like with Yuri, but I really hoped to have a tea party with Alice and friends after seeing that in the sleepover sequence. However, as bhcp2 and VocalRhapsody have already vocalized, I believe what is currently needed is more story questlines.
Sorry I cannot offer you a more thorough review, it's just not something I think about when I'm playing for the simple enjoyment of it.
I generally like the characters, but there's significantly less development of the characters than there is the actual puzzles. I'm still trying to figure out how to get out of the lab, and now that I've been turned squidbunny I fear I'm going to have to load an earlier save because it soft locks you out of the scanners.
I feel like you get the most face time out of Yuri since she's doing the class rep thing to get your registration all squared away, but honestly I can't say more until I figure out how to get one of the girls out of the dream world.
I do like the story, but the reason most discussion is about the gameplay and puzzles is that the story feels secondary. The puzzles are very difficult and take a lot of practice to succeed in, while the story seems to just happen in the background. If you wanted the story to be more prominent, maybe have there be day time puzzles and areas that interact with the dreams and make the dreams more directly linked to the story.
These are just some ideas but it is simply the case that the puzzles take more attention than the story
After digging through a lot of the files and solving a majority of the puzzles, I can confidently say that I think the characters are a super strong aspect of the game, backed up by (in my opinion) phenomenal world building in the case of the level 4 logs.
Kari and Nanami are by far the most interesting characters to me, and I would *LOVE* to see them get fleshed out and see where their routes go.
While the main quests are a bit lacking, this is to be expected, but how the characters behave and respond to things feels good and seeing how they each handle the situations keeps me engaged. I absolutely encourage you to flesh out the story and the characters.
I think the main reason you see a lot of people talking about the puzzles is that they are probably seen an avenue to advance the story, which is why I think its a tad odd that you can do the story without interacting with the puzzles at all. Even just thinking of the suggestion of making them more intertwined seems like a nightmarish rabbit hole in terms of development, but I think what we have now is solid enough to be expanded upon in the current system.