'Rain of Feathers' is the saga of a friends-to-lovers story set in magical medieval furry times. From a tradition that started between he friendship between two kingdoms, the birds and the wolves, a new friendship blossoms into something more. This has got a crazy emotional resonance that's really good about pacing this romance story as a slow-burn, who's only fault is that it's too slow-burn for it's own good and it ends up not being finished!
The story starts with innocent beginnings as two children meet and become friends at the yearly festival that brings the bird people and the wolf people together for a festival called the rain of feathers. Really cute tradition about how birds drop feathers, wolves pick on up, and then the bird see who picked one up and then they spend the festival together forging a friendship. Time skip to when the two are teenagers, and they're still deepening their friendship, and honing their magical and physical skills to become adventurers when they're of age. Crow boy, Roberto, is suddenly hit with the hormones and is like "Oh no, I'm attracted to my best wolf friend, Jacob." Course, as he doesn't want to compromise his friendship, he keeps it hidden. Time skip to when they're adults and just about adventuring age, they spend time together exploring the wilderness, finding hidden ruins, and getting unusually close as Roberto pervs on his friend and becomes a voyeur (so hot). Those ruins they found though, something is related to that legend that they might've uncovered, wonder what it is, since it just finished! It's a really good slow-burn of a friends-to-lovers story, I love the dynamic of the fighter-outgoing-jock wolf and the wizard-reserved-nerd crow, and their innocent and pure friendship that then slowly morphs into something more lustful and perverse. Love the tension of the yearning of wanting to become more but not to risk their friendship.
The presentation is also really nice. I love the emphasis on the cg of teen Jacob with the moon smiling, such a great shot. And there's a lot of feeling and concept work put into this to really try to convey the story you want to tell. Like, yes a lot of the backgrounds are sketches and rough around the edges, but there's also a lot of surprisingly polished pieces here. You've got the introduction of the folklore story being striking, the sprite work of these boys as they grew up, into very handsome men, and then of course the eye candy of Jacob in the waterfall. I will say there's always improvement for adding polish, like title screens, but I think time limit got you ya, considering the ambition of BGs you wanted to put in this. Audio work was also quite well done, with lots of fun sound effects to emphasis on magic spells or weapon hits. It's cute whenever a sprite flies upward to show the birds flying away. The writing could definitely use a pass or two with some edits. The bones are there, it just needs refinement. Making sure that certain sentences read well, maybe fleshing out some more details in certain areas while cutting down on excessive details in other areas.
The folklore theme is also really strong in this one, coming up with a custom one for this world. Sure, it's a bit more historical in context, especially since magic is real, but I think it works for setting up the theme of this story, which is that love can bridge even across races. There were a few moments where the text and dialog gets a little bit anachronistic, using surprisingly modern vocabulary for a fantasy setting, which can bring the reader out. I appreciate the gay-positivity talk Roberto had with his mom, though I think that could use a bit of tweaking, either to better re-enforce Roberto's reluctance to reveal his feeling for Jacob, or to better re-enforce how the world setting views such an unusual relationship pairing. Mom is okay with it, but is this normal society wise? Is there more at stake if Roberto reveals his sexuality than just losing his friend? I thought the concept of the tale was really creative, even if it then seemed to lead into a very standard love/adventure story setting.
I'm really glad to see Kemonito Kusuri use this jam to hone in on their writing and storytelling skills. Something that I notice is that there's always good bones to the stories, but either due to feature creep, too big a scope, or time management issues the visual novels end up with neat concepts and engaging moments, only to be cut short or feel too cumbersome to get to those good bits. I know in previous entries there were attempts at a game-elements, I'm glad the story didn't feel the need to add something in for game-play's sake. Where I feel that you should focus in on for your projects is to leave time to edit, figuring out the heart of your story and making sure the bits that you want to keep in are supporting that. I want to backseat so bad telling you what I think it is, but I also know that this is your story and you have a specific vision to what you wanted this story to be. I'm a sucker for young and first time love, keeping it chaste but also real vulnerability, and I thought that you nailed that feeling on the head.