I am gonna start by saying, I love this game, I go back to it every so often because it's great. it has inspired quite a few things from me (Nothing public). I adore how you tow the line of horror and romance, how you make the characters feel like threats, without ever making the good ending feel like waiting for the boot to drop, how you clearly paint the horror as a manifestation of their unresolved feelings... for the fem characters.
I am gonna get into spoilers now.
Lyell never felt like a threat, and I know that was the point, but, how you leaned away from her bad end, it felt like you weren't confident in it, and while I understand that her bad end does make sense for her, I kind of wish you made her hurt Jaylene like (Almost) everyone else, because the ending she got, feels like it wasn't given the same treatment of the other endings, you don't describe anything, like you are afead of the darker sides of your story, but I know you aren't. xanthe's bad end is her giving Jaylene a lobotomy while begging for her to understand that she isn't acting by her own ability. Victoria Blows Jaylene's face off with a shot gun and keeps her dead body in the basement. Bae eats herself after eating Jaylene's rotting flesh, which is a more fantastical version of the ending lyell got, I assume, because what we got of lyell was Jaylene walking into the house, getting horrorifed, and Lyell being dead. I just feels like you pulled away, and, I understand why, it's hard to write a less fantastical self offing without worrying about causing people to do it themselves, but, did she even need to die? living your life stuck because you are the provider and you have no support is psychological horror, the horror could've been how she never felt happy, even after being an a relationship with Jaylene, and her other options weren't things she felt like she could do, because she is the provider. If you wanted the bad end to have gore, instead of offing herself, she could've started self harming in a way that could possibly just be her protecting Jaylene, or, maybe she fails to protect Jaylene because she is too tried from being strong all the time.
Minor gape, I think Blake would've been better as a trans women, She is great, don't get me wrong, but, her internal struggle about being the experiment could've had that extra juicy layer of "Does Jaylene even see me as women?".
Jaylene, I love what you did with her story, I love how you drip feed it through the different routes, but, in Blake's route, and kinda in lien's route, I get the feeling that she can't die as long as her heart is intact, so, why does she die in bae's and maybe Victoria's bad endings? in Lien's, they blow up, so heart is probably gone, in xanthe's she doesn't explicitly die, but, she is rotting in bae's, and in Victoria's it's implied she is dead. Lien's route reframes the Bae's and victoria's bad ends in a way that kinda pulls me out of them.
and finally, it feels like Victoria and xanthe got more dev time, they feel like complete finale versions, everyone else kinda feels more like late stage drafts, good, but, missing something. I feel like the game would've benefited from A, trimming every route but victoria's and Xanthe's. or B, spending more time fleshing out everyone else. I can't put into words on why vic's and xan's routes feel so different, but they do, character wise I prefer Lyell, Blake, and Lien, but story wise I prefer victoria and xanthe.
but, again, great game, and i can't wait to play your next.