⭐⭐
Encounters in the Moonlight is a story a little too enamoured with its setting at the cost of every other aspect to offer a cohesive experience.
I had my concerns when the story opened on somewhat lengthy exposition, but it was only about halfway through that I realised those dumps were never gonna end. In the place of characterization, a lot of time here is spent on long lore diatribes only broken off by a brief action scene (that did manage to have some gravitas) and its erotic scene. The way I see it, the priorities here are all wrong. Readers learn more of the politics of two locations they'll never see than either of the characters they spent time with.
I have encountered before works where worldbuilding were the main attraction over character arcs and story structure, but those have had the benefit of being longer, which allowed them to include those elements at some level. At 7.5k words, this VN doesn't have the space for them, leaving characters flat and their dialogue closer to encyclopedia entries.
As for the writing itself, it is far from spectacular, with unmemorable prose, a lack of sentence variety and a clinical approach to conveying information that makes reading this project a bit of a chore. Aside from some well made sprites and CGs, sadly, I don't believe Encounters in the Moonlight offers much in other areas either. Some creative blocking and transitions are employed, but they exist to serve such a flat narrative I just think the whole experience comes off as bland.
Unless there's someone absolutely in love with the premise and/or the art by themselves, I don't think I would recommend this one.