Firstly, I wanna say thank you so much for playing through SR, and also thanks for taking the time to write everything you did :3 I can't even put into words how happy I am to know that you enjoyed the game as much as you did! I really appreciate hearing your thoughts on it all.
Sorry it's taken me a while to reply to your comment. I'm visiting my family today after not having seen them for months cos of the lockdown, so I figured I should probably stay off of my phone for a bit, haha.
I guess I should also say that from this point on there will be SPOILERS in what I'm about to write here too, so anyone who is reading this and wants to avoid spoilers, don't read ahead :3
When I first started writing the story, I had a good idea of where I wanted to take it, but it wasn't until I'd finished writing that I realised just how long it had become xD It wasn't really my intention to create a VN as long as this, and probably wasn't the best thing to make for a first project, haha, but I find it hard to stop once I've started something so I just persevered with it! I loved making it, but man, it was painful sometimes when I was doing incredibly boring but necessary tasks x3
I'm a huge lover of yandere characters, usually villains too, haha, but only if they have a reason to be the way they are. I don't like it when a character is evil just for the sake of it, so with Kuro, it was important for me to tell a story that explained why he is the way he is :3
I'm glad you liked that particular romantic scene in the Princess route :3 I sometimes wonder if I included too much in the way of bad ends and horrible things happening, and not enough sweetness or romance >.< haha. But I love writing bad ends so much x3
The Detective route is also my favourite route :D I love scare mazes an awful lot, so it was extra fun writing a story including those, haha.
Your sister will be pleased to know that he will be making more appearances in the future then :P
I'm sorry there was no way to save that particular Kuro x3 I didn't mean to be so cruel with that, haha.
And I'm sorry you ended up getting that bad end so far into the route, I know that one is mean, but I just love having those kinda tragic bad ends x3 I'm glad you managed to figure out how to get past it though and carry on with the rest of the route :D Do you think I should write up a walkthrough or mini guide? Cos I tried to make it so the choices aren't super complicated, but it's difficult for me to tell how hard it actually is to unlock everything when I know exactly how to get everything >.<
I'm honoured that you think my storytelling/writing is so good :3 I've struggled with rubbish levels of self belief all my life, so no matter what I do, my stupid brain tells me I've done a crap job! >.< Hearing lovely comments like yours really helps me to fight back against those negative thoughts and actually start to believe in myself a little bit, so thank you ^-^ If you do decide to make and release a VN, you'll have to let me know so I can play it!
Yeeeeah, Isaac reeeeaaally fucked up! I don't know if he can ever truly be redeemed or forgiven after everything he's done, but at least he did something good in the end, haha. I had so much fun making the inside of the creature with all the black squelchiness x3 Out of everything in the game, I felt like those backgrounds and those sounds were the most atmospheric bit just cos they went perfectly together. Now you've said what you did about you and your sister joking about the creature smoking, I'll never be able to look at those scenes in the same way again xD
Regarding the ending, I was considering having Isaac save OG MC and Shiro by putting them into 339 and 13's bodies rather than just random units that were available, just so it was more like 339 and 13 lived on in OG MC and Shiro in a more physical representation. 339 and 13 aren't completely gone anyhow though cos a part of them does live inside OG MC, and if they hadn't made the sacrifice that they did, OG MC would have died before even regaining consciousness. I also debated making that a choice, for 339 to just say, nope, I'm not helping, and let OG MC die xD but I felt like that was too mean, haha.
To me, 339 and 13 are the real saviours of the story and my favourite protagonist and Kuro couple, even more than OG MC and Shiro :3 They did deserve better, but I wanted them to have a bittersweet ending x3 I'm sorry I'm so mean... I was actually going to be even crueller originally! I was only going to have bad, tragic, and bittersweet endings as final endings, and not include one that could be considered a genuinely happy end where OG MC and Shiro could actually be together in peace finally. I thought about it for a while, and decided that I couldn't bring myself to do it, haha. I also figured that anyone who played it would probably appreciate some form of happy ending after all of the pain and suffering throughout the journey, which is why I wrote the true end in the end :3 I'm still not 100% happy with the way I wrote the last scenes in the true end though >.<
My favourite Kuro ended up being 13, he just grew on me even though I preferred some of the others when I was writing it all! I think out of all of them, his story just breaks my heart the most. Then when Tim voiced him and brought him to life I just wanted to give 13 a big hug, haha.
Regarding the art, I made the sprites using a Japanese software that I purchased (because my art skills leave a lot to be desired xD) which was really awesome as it allowed me to choose the type of eyes, etc. and the hairstyles were pieced together from lots of tiny little bits of hair until they resembled a style, so that was fun! It took me a looooong time though with the sheer number of sprites I needed >.< The only thing I was frustrated with was not being able to make some of the Kuro's look more manly or mature, which was down to the software being quite limited when it came to more manly features, so most of the Kuro's appear somewhat feminine, haha. Destini Ruffin drew all of the CG art, so without her, I wouldn't even have been able to include a gallery feature :3 And the background art I purchased as resource packs. I had to buy a lot of background art to cover all the different world settings and I never have much money, but I spent all of what I had anyway cos I'm an idiot xD I will try stuff like Kickstarter in the future though to see if I can get a project properly funded cos I felt awful not being able to pay Destini for all the CGs or the voice actors for their time and incredible work as well.
I know what ya mean with feeling like you have a giant hole cos that's how I end up feeling after I've finished something I really enjoyed, like the Mass Effect series, I pretty much cried when I finally finished that, haha. To be honest, I nearly cried reading your comment cos it's just kinda overwhelming in the best way possible to know that you enjoyed SR so much :3
You don't need to apologise anyhow, I really enjoyed reading through your comment! If nobody took the time to let me know how they felt about the game I'd be completely in the dark, so it's great to know what you thought of it, and as I said, I appreciate you taking the time to write everything you did <3
As for my name, I don't really mind what people call me :3 Kari is the name I kinda chose for myself a long time ago because I didn't really wanna use Cody, haha, but now I don't mind, so you're welcome to use either!
To answer your question, 26 wasn't originally gonna be 26, I think she was 17 or something in the old story documents, but when I was typing up Jacob's script for Isaac I decided to change it to 26 just cos that was my age at the time. I'm 28 now though xD 339 wasn't 339 either, haha. I think she might've been 37, which was the door number for my dad's house, but I needed her number to be much higher so I changed that too. I can't remember what made me pick 339 though, I don't think it has any particular significance. 13 was actually a last minute change! I always referred to him affectionately as Dollmaker,
but his number was 404. I changed it to 13 like you say, cos of its connections with being an unlucky number, and cos I wanted his number to be lower to show the sheer amount of time he'd been awake.
Thank you again for all your kind words :3 Your support means the world to me! I plan to keep making VNs for as long as I can, cos I've got a lot of stories I wanna tell, so I hope I'll be able to create something in the future that enjoy just as much as SR :D
Hope you're managing to stay safe! Have an awesome week ^_^