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I'm a big fan of tcoaall, and after playing it I got into Nemlei's previous games too. I was excited to see that a fangame of NGN was being made, and finally playing it has been a delight!

The artstyle contrasts NGN's cartoony-fairytail style, since it has a cleaner, more 'modern' style, but this is precicesly what fits the AU perfectly, and maintains the spirit of the original.

The character models are impeccably drawn, but I found that some of the CGs where lacking in composition. This may have been a case of varying talent on the part of the art team; the sex scene and the closet scene were well drawn, but most of the other CGs had poor lighting, and character representation. I think that better studies of shading and models would have gone a long way to make some of the CGs feel 'cleaner'; part of what is so attractive about tcoaall, and NGN, and nemlei's games in general, is that she is remarkably versatile & detailed in how she represents her characters, a majority of the "poses" in this game's CGs felt stiff & awkward by comparison, which contrasted sharply with the otherwise dynamic composition; I was especially dissapointed with the quality of the ending graphics (though, again, for some of the scenes, this wasn't an issue).

The writing for this game demonstrates a clear love for nemlei's style of storytelling, and I think that the plot is a clear 'upgrade' from the original story. I esspecially liked the change, that Noelle's "uselessness", is connected to her poverty; as a theme, this was implicit in the original work, and I liked that it was explored here in a thoughtful & nuanced way. The characterization is correct, there's less nonsense about the contrivances & details of Yule's situation, and the core conflict of Yule & Noelle 'helping eachother cheat', is translated to the university setting in a very clever way, and the drama of this relationship is explored in novel ways that I enjoyed reading alot.

My only minor complaint with the writing is that it felt a little 'convinient' at times; this is because there was a bit too much explaining. For example, when Noelle walks into Yule's room because she hears a branch tapping on the window, it logically makes sense, but it would make more narrative sense if she recognized what was making the noise before she entered the room, but decided to snoop around anyways. The story is also very blunt about it's social commentary, I don't disagree with it, but I think it the same message could have been delivered more subtly, or in a more clever way.

Overall, I would give this game a solid B. Good writing, good art; there are wrinkes in both, but these wrinkles are incidental & not necissarily fundimental. I don't know if you're team has another project in the works, but if you do, I would love to play it!

(It's a shame this game couldn't be monitized either)

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Just be glad u got something bro🙄

just for this stupid comment, I'll add another criticism

I didn't like the music; the 'lo-fi' soundtrack didn't really compliment the style, even if it does call back to the original game. I know that music production adds another dimension to game development, even nemlei comissioned the soundtrack for coffin rather than composing it herself, but I think that the soundtrack is one of the most important aspect of visual novels in general. This game only cycled through a handful of tracks, and they didn't always fit the tone, either.

Now that I think of it, this aspect brings my personal rating down to a B-

(and for the record, I'm criticising this game because I care about it, dismissing criticism indicates a lack of care, and is actually condescending)

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Whatever helps u sleep at night lol

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one day, age verification will reach a point were I will never have to endure 15 year olds in my fandom ever again