i liked this game a lot! it had an intriguing story, really good writing, and an extremely well crafted atmosphere!! :D
(SPOILERS)
i loved the vibes of everything. wandering through this giant mansion felt super eerie, and the darkness and the mysterious nature of certain parts of the place made it feel even scarier. whenever there was a sound i didn't understand i felt just as confused as the main character haha, but that made it so when there was NO sound i felt 10x as nervous. there's so many little details that add to the atmosphere: the way the lighting works, the room with ocean sounds, the EXTREMELY cool way the ticking fades as you move, allan looking tired in his face pictures, the fact this giant place is completely devoid of people... the way this mansion *feels* is immaculate. when i woke up on the final night, finding out i couldn't interact with anything, and that not even the ocean sounds room had ocean sounds... man that's a level of dread that's VERY hard to pull off. well done.
the story was also really good! you definitely feel what allan's feeling at every moment, be it confusion, sadness, despair... and it was really compelling to hear about the past he had with his sister. and i loved that there's actually no supernatural things happening, it's just normal sounds and his mind playing tricks on him (that's my interpretation at least. and i also think before night 7 starts, he died and what we're seeing is him in the afterlife; that's why he can't hear anything and has hallucinations. the story's really open to theorizing, and that's so cool!). and the writing is really really good. i especially loved enice's diary entries; they're really elegant and well written. her reflections on every topic that came to her mind as she was sick felt so profound that i actually felt dumb while reading them lol. in a good way of course! there were so many little fragments of text that stuck out to me: enice wondering if dying is what makes life matter, allan saying the garden has "nothing except for time and dirt", the sentence "daylight makes such things look foolish", that one's so absurdly good that i'm gonna steal it- (jk, i'm not XD still super good tho) and dude, when i read in the diary "my half is done"... damn that was powerful.
maybe this makes zero sense but the story kinda gives me the vibe of analog horror? like, walking through this empty mansion, trying to find things that aren't there, uncovering the main character and her sister's tragic backstory... it all seems like things i'd see in fake v/h/s youtube videos at 2 AM haha. it's a really unique style!
i like the presentation too! like i said, the lighting and sounds are really well done. and things like the few drawings and pictures you see from time to time are really cool. i really love the way every night starts with a different presentation image! and of course, the custom loading screen is great. the background images in some areas are kind of abstract and i'm not sure it fits with how realistic everything looks. but that's just a nitpick. once again, you use default assets really effectively and end up making the visuals really solid :D and oh! i love how in the hallway outside your room the black squares form an upside down cross!! i noticed that at the very end, that's such an awesome detail haha.
i think the biggest issue i had was the puzzles. they were mostly good but the ticking puzzle was pretty hard to figure out (you said you were gonna remake it tho, so if you do, ignore this lol) and it wasn't really clear that you had to look for the spot with the loudest sound in every floor, neither that the answer was "fireplace". i don't think this puzzle needs to be reworked from the ground up, just a couple more hints towards the solution would've maybe been enough? and the two puzzles that used constant sound (the ticking and the wind/dripping/mouse), while like i said they amplify the tension in parts that are silent, are kind of annoying and made me turn off the sound after a couple minutes. not really sure how to fix that without removing the entire point of the puzzles though. and lastly, i don't think i would've guessed how to get the third ending without looking the walkthrough, since i'm guessing it uses global switches and there's no hint to that in the game. maybe when you get both endings the game could've given some sort of dialogue that alludes to enice's diary before it sends you to the title screen. obviously that's just my opinion tho.
sorry for leaving you such an essay lmao. i genuinely think there's a LOT to talk about with this game, and i honestly couldn't believe that it was your first game!! the narrative and atmosphere feel like they had a lot of experience behind them. color me impressed!
i'm enjoying this series so so much!! they're such fascinating explorations of death and regret, with perspectives that all feel really unique and creative. you said you were working on a spinoff about the detective from pieces, right? looking forward to that! :D
and finally, i must ask................ will we ever know what GANA stands for??? (actually no, don't tell me, i want it to be a surprise-)
loved this game!! <3