OH MY GOD i JUST played the demo and holy shit its amazing????? since the trailer looked super interesting ive been really hyped for the demo release for the past couple days and it absolutely blew my expectations out of the water!!! the whole game is so pretty oh my god, the art is lovely to look at (THE LITTLE PIXEL ART PROFILES?? SO GOOD!!!) and its actually really really fun to play!!! the mini games are challenging enough to be fun without feeling annoying or repetitive (at least for me, and it took SO many tries to get the memory game. im so bad at those oh my god). it feels super interactive and there's a million wonderful little details that i was delighted by once i found them. like, even the title page is filled with fun little things you can mess with and click on!! and the story itself is really interesting so far and really refreshingly unique, especially with Adisorn as a character!! like dont get me wrong, theres a lotta wonderful stuff out there, but man, i dont think ive had this much fun with a visual novel in a really long time. i kinda forgot how awesome they could be, and the demo has just left me super inspired to create things myself!! ok quick ramble of specific stuff i LOVED in no particular order GO:
- the customization!!! the quiz you start out with is so cute, and the game has so many little spots where your character and the traits you picked show up and it really just feels so interactive and cool!!! the visual bits of the character creator itself are really good too :) it gives you a good amount of options to pick from, but keeps it simple enough that its not impossible to be able to add all those little details later on in spots like the pictures of your character n stuff!! though my hand does hurt thinking about the amount of time drawing all the variations mustve took. this game just comes off as such a labor of love!! its so filled with attention to detail!!! i think ive maybe used the word detail a million times by now though so my bad. BUT ITS JUST SO DETAILED IM SORRYY
- all of the dialogue is so fun to read!! dialogue and banter have always been one of my favorite things to read, and this game does it so well!!! it all feels super realistic and it especially gets the fun tone of the texting on point :D i had SO much fun scrolling through all the past chats with the other characters. and on that note,
- the environmental storytelling in the game is really good!! from the way your room looks to the little notes on your computer, it all works really well. while its not quite the same thing, the DMs also do a similar thing really well!!
- ADISORN. like just as a character. hes SO interesting so far... also i really love how subtle he is as a yandere type? i feel like its overdone a lot (not that i hate those interpretations of the trope or anything, i can find them really fun to read!!), but adisorn just feels like an actual person!! he feels complex and multi-dimensional. i especially appreciate how his affection for the MC is portrayed!! hes obsessed, sure, but without the outside knowledge we have as players (and the massive red flag of the your mayonnaise is gonna expire letter lol) he doesnt come off as overly obvious at all. he comes off as person with layers instead of a character trope and its REALLY good character writing!!! ^_^ also i adore the RBF. i too have a horrible case of RBF and hes just so real for that. adisorn I LOVE YOU!!!!
- THE LITTLE BIT OF POETRY AT THE END!!!! i honestly love the style of writing this game uses, and the poetic bit at the end was so good (i specifically really loved the bones breathing line, the imagery just really caught me!!) and honestly the whole way the ending scene is presented............ AND THE EVIL LAUGH!!!!! this is already way too long and im sleepy so im gonna wrap this up but basically,
i just loved the whole demo sosososo much. it felt amazing to play, and has left me feeling really inspired to go make art of my own :) a lot of love was clearly put into this and it absolutely shines through in every aspect. i gotta sleep for real now, but im unbelievably excited to be able to play the full game once it comes out!! ^_^ (P.S. sorry about how long this got LOL)