actually in awe at this. a tour de force of a visual novel, and it's only a demo right now. you've sold me hook, line, and sinker for the full game.
a lot of people have praised the presentation, and you can add me to the list. you've pushed ren'py to its absolute limits. several times, i was like "holy shit, i didn't know you could DO that in the engine"... or if i did have an idea of how you set up a scene, it was handled in such a clever way that it felt fresh and novel. every part of this game is drenched in the language of live film, of photography, so whenever the scene presentation changed ,it didn't feel jarring. i am taking notes from you all for my own work. well done.
that's not even getting into the story. i already have a good sense of how rill and ruby tick, and how they bounce off of each other as characters... but you also made it clear where they might fall apart with each other. (namely the scene where rill talks to ruby about her full name. when ruby said "yeah, i like your nickname more", the connotations of that statement made me go "oh no")
and then, there's the setting — which i'd argue is a character in of itself. a walled, sprawling, urban mass filled with rotting husks of past infrastructures — train stations, switchboards, offices. the descriptions of the school that rill and ruby went to reminded me of the begich towers condominium in alaska, where everyone lives, goes to school, gets groceries, et cetera. that, plus the more supernatural elements rill comes in contact with feels like an american response to roadside picnic and its creative children.
cannot state enough how excited i am for the full release. fantastic work, everyone.