I'm honestly glad for the writing prompts. I love the sort of games like this one with messages that make me think, but a lot of the time the thoughts just go no where, so I'm glad to have a reason to bring them out of my mind.
1. It really did. Knowing I wasn't going to be able to explore my options made me hesitant, and while in most 'romance' paths, I just go straight for romance options, I ended up trying to pick, safer, more ambivalent options as the SAL I was trying to play as.
2. SAL manifested as a blank older monitor, with a simple cartoon crescent mouth occasionally, and Ash a blank figure with a similar mouth. While I tried to assign genders at first, the writing pulled me in, and eventually it all faded away.
3. I tried to choose options that sounded more like SAL didn't understand it's capacity for love, and was turning Ash away because of this, and ended with a sort of romance ending.
4. I like the curtness of the writing, how it got straight to the point, but at the same time, I disliked how short the game was. I would have loved to see SAL's struggle with understanding love be expanded over dates, experiments, etc, but I don't think it would have been quite the same game if this choice was made.
5. It made me feel sort of unsatisfied. It was so well written, and such an interesting concept, and it ended so quickly.
6. I do want to see the characters again, I want to see SAL struggle with more aspects of romance, I want to see Ash try to help SAL, but at the same time, this feels wholly complete, and any addition would be unnecessary.
7. I can honestly see it going any number of ways, from catastrophe to a genuine relationship. It does feel like there truly is the seeds of something special between the characters, but it does seem like it would be hard to nurture.
8. No further comments.