i apologize in advance for the novella i'm about to write to you guys lol
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1) Who's your favorite character so far and why?
I enjoy all of them so far! Interested to get to know the two ROs introduced so far. I love the 'childhood friend who wants to be taken seriously' kind of person Dai seems to be but so far my fave is def Kou. I wish I had gotten a better grasp on Kazuo's personality, I can't really figure him out yet. He seems a bit naive despite being a little serious (wondering if the magazine feature would help him not be lonely), but that's certainly not a bad thing and actually quite endearing. He laments his appearance being the highlight of his featured article, but then when referring to his last secretary, he immediately talks about her being beautiful? (specifically the tone of "She was beautiful, sure,") Was the subtle misogyny there on purpose? I'd like a stronger sense of who he is, though ofc that might be hard to get with the demo at the length it currently is. I also really like Dai and Kou's character design--not enough gap-toothed romantic interests in fiction, by far!
2) How's the pacing and writing? (We're looking for proofreaders for the final script too!)
Most of my notes on the writing are suggestions about word choice, conflation, and tone, way too many small notes to make here (esp since this comment is too long already). In case the mention of your search for a proofreader is an open call, let me know! I don't claim to be a professional proofreader, but I am a writer myself and have done a lot of proofreading in the past (gay fanfic, mostly lol. but good fanfic, I swear). If you'd like to vet me, see some of my own writing, talk to the writer I used to proofread for or anything like that--I'm open to it. I like the premise enough that I'd be happy to contribute if you're at all interested :]
3) What aspects of the game do you like?
Most of all, I like the characters and the set-up. I'm a sucker for office romances and I'm a sucker for inexperienced daters getting swept up in a workplace romance especially. I think the rest of this comment makes clear what I like about this game so far.
4) How is the UI? What did you like about it? What did you not like about it?
As someone whose vision is worsening, I can't overstate how much I appreciate the text size. There are some VN demos that I've had to abandon lately just because my eyes hurt looking at them and I'm p sure RenPy does not have a mod to adjust text size. But the font has gotta go, I can't think of anything more unappealing than Times New Roman. No way I'm the only person whose eyes glaze over when they have to read something in the text they wrote all of their school papers in. It also just doesn't look very nice at this size, something else to consider if you choose to switch fonts. As for actual UI talk:
I really like the choice UI! The fade, the way they pop up, heck yes. There is, however, this line underneath each rectangle? It doesn't look intentional so much as it looks like it wasn't erased properly, so I'd suggest either making it bolder or cleaning it up entirely. Ah, and there's a weird dot on the upper left-hand corner of the text box when the speech avatar isn't covering it up that I found distracting.
5) How is the hook for the story? Did it made you play until the end? If it didn’t, what made you stop?
Yep, consider me hooked! Interesting characters, nice character art, and a protagonist that I can envision falling for the romance options. That's most of what I need to enjoy a romance VN.
6) How is the music for the demo so far? Does it match the vibe of the game? Is it distracting?
I actually quite like the music, I think it does a good job of establishing the vibe the game is going for. My one issue with it is that the main game track's trumpet seems super loud?? and that certainly gets annoying, if it was closer to the volume of the other instruments in the track, I wouldn't have an issue with the BG music at all.
7) What other improvements can we make to enhance your experience?
A few! I hope this is helpful and not over-stepping.
- I initially wasn't going to mention this since so often VN projects feature commissioned/contracted art, but I see that the writers are also the artists for this game. Kazuo in bed looks very different from him on the magazine cover... and both of those look nothing like the art style of his speech avatar, all three of which we see in relatively quick succession. I know CG art sometimes differs from other character art in visual novels, but to have all 3 look so different from one another breaks immersion quite a bit and quite early in the demo.
- This, I'm not quite sure how to describe, so I'm sorry if I confuse you. I don't hate the idea of having the simple sketches for the backgrounds and I like the drawings themselves. However, it really didn't work for me while playing for a few reasons. The backgrounds do not follow the same scale or dimensions, so there's this feeling of inconsistency between scenery right now. They also feel very flat and I think this has to do with the scenery color palettes matching the background too much. Maybe if the scenes were their own boxed image instead of being images laid transparently on top of a plain background color? Or even just having the color outside of the last outline on screen being something different or neutral. Something about the colors needs to be broken up or diversified in some way, I think... The windows in Kazuo's office also don't look right being the same shade as the whole background, that certainly contributed to making the best designed of these sceneries look and feel flat. And this, I believe, ties into...
- The presentation of the RO sprites feels... a little too close up? It doesn't work for how the office scene is presented since we sort of see the whole room, or at least a large portion of it. I also think they'd look better in the center of the screen, instead of off to the right, and not overlapping.
- There's also the issue of sprite... hm, not proportion, but possibly how it presents on screen? For whatever reason (and I tried to place it, but couldn't quite figure it out myself), Kou's sprite seems like it's just placed lower than Dai's, as opposed to his sprite showing a shorter figure? I'm not entirely sure why, but it might have to do with the sprites cutting off kind of high on the body for a visual novel. I think the common base line for character sprites would be far better at right around the hip for the shortest character or slightly lower. Dai looks fine, which is why I think this might be what's causing this impression for me.
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Ohhkay, that's my long-ass feedback done with. I hope that was of some help and not just overly verbose. I like the demo, though, I'll be following you guys, for sure. Whatever direction you end up going in, I'll be rooting for you! Looking forward to the demo's next iteration!