[MASSIVE WALL OF TEXT WARNING]
So I just finished the introduction and I'm loving it so far. The game's got a lot of neat little touches that make it feel alive. For instance the custom clothing (or custom textures on clothing?) is a really nice touch that I haven't seen in that many of these games before. The character designs are really well done too, I especially love some of the outfits they wear.
I also really enjoy how deeply you dived into the MC's and Mia's relationship. Most games that give the MC an already pre-established girlfriend tend to just leave it at that. They basically just say "This is the MC's girlfriend, ok bye" and leave it there. But this game is different in that it decides to actually show you multiple stages of their relationship in detail allowing you to get a pretty sizable look at both of their characters which is much appreciated. It allows you to actually develop interest in the characters yourself instead of trying to force you to be interested in them.
Can't really say much about the story as it doesn't really kick off in the intro. But so far it IS a fairly interesting premise and it DID catch my attention. So I'm excited to play through 1.1's content.
With all that said I do want to leave a bit of a warning I guess. I've read the comments and learned about some past drama and rewrites due to it. So I wanna give a piece of advice here. Try not to deviate from YOUR vision too much. I feel like if you constantly rewrite and change too many things you'd risk losing your edge, your motivation I guess. It'd stop feeling like it's YOUR story that YOU'RE making and the overall quality of it may drop as a result of that. Let me use Zenless Zone Zero as an example. It had a rocky start but it felt unique, and it felt like something the devs WANTED to make, something they were confident in, and I could feel that as a player. Then the devs began removing TV mode, and the amount of detail began dropping too, there were less neat interactions between characters, less detail in the environment, then later began changing the whole formula in season 2. It wasn't bad initially, but last minute rewrites to the story followed and then following the rewrites came issues with voice acting. To me it began feeling like it was moving away from what the devs actually wanted. They began moving away from THEIR vision out of fear that it'd be rejected by the players. I already feel like this game is something I'm gonna be following for a long time and I don't want it to go the same direction as ZZZ did.
Now I want to clarify something while I'm at it. Feedback IS good, Criticism IS good, and it's something you SHOULD be using to improve and grow as a developer/writer/whatever. But at the same time it can be dangerous as it could lead to that sort of loss of motivation I mentioned earlier. The mistake the ZZZ devs did was fold to everything their players said about the game. If YOU think that something is TRULY essential to your game, then I think you should argue for it, try and make people see the reasons WHY it's in the game. Or at least that's how MY brain operates, there's certain things I don't find excusable at all and I'd make sure to tell you about them but otherwise I'm willing to change my opinion provided the right reasons. Alternatively, find a middle ground. A solution that both you AND the players are happy with WITHOUT compromising the game's integrity.
In regards to the Lesbian content being rewritten/removed/whatever. There's a game that's going through something similar in those regards. The source of your drama was a flashback lesbian scene between two future Love Interests. The game I'm referencing here is ECHOES by Oldcat/Lyk4n. Lyk4n's drama originated from a short flashback scene where the MC caught his ex-gf cheating on him. Technically NTR, so I understand the drama there more than the drama here. The parallels between the two is simple, both CAN be viewed as NTR as they both involve a character the MC is/will be romantically involved with, doing something with a different character that ISN'T the MC. However, whereas ECHOES is actually a form of NTR used as plot/character development. The scene from this game just straight up isn't NTR as neither character was involved with the MC at the time of the scene occurring. Both situations have made me realize just how fanatical people are about NTR, so much so that they seem to begin these crusades against things that are easily misinterpreted as NTR. Making it all optional is a fairly good solution to it as it DOES remove that scene, but I still feel like whenever it's re-added the fanatics would still consider it NTR because it's a flashback between the two characters. So I think whenever it's drummed back up, you should ignore them. You've already given them a solution, so now it's up to them whether or not to take it. Tying it back to my previous paragraph, I wouldn't recommend completely writing it out of the story either.
That's honestly everything I've got to say. Or to be more accurate, I'm actively stopping myself from saying more or else this would probably end up being a couple hundred pages long. I tend to easily ramble about things and that translates into writing as well. Ultimately you're the developer, so you get the final say in whatever decisions are made about the game, I just wanted to provide my input on the matters at hand. Overall, I AM enjoying the game so far as it is now and really look forward to future updates. So I wish you well with the development of the game.
Edit: After reading a few of the free patreon posts. It looks like you kinda already knew a lot of this huh? Sorry for repeating it then lol.
