Hi! Thank you so much for the kind words about the writing and the characters, it really means a lot to me!
You are right, the backgrounds are indeed AI-generated.
Since this is a solo fan project driven entirely by pure enthusiasm, and I am not a 2D artist myself, AI was the only way for me to visualize the environments. This allowed me to focus my time and effort on the script, coding, and character renders.
I do have this mentioned in the game's credits and on the itch.io page with the AI tags, but I completely understand it can be jarring if you missed it and weren't expecting it. I appreciate you giving the game a chance and hope you can still enjoy the rest of the story!