Hello and welcome to Feedback Quest 9! My name is Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts for this lovely event! I'm also one of the streamers, so both the game and this feedback are being done live! If you want to see the see the VOD, let me know and I'll link you to it when it's uploaded to YouTube!
To start, along with liking the artwork for Criselda (which was really the only artwork I saw, as I never got past the dinner scene so I don't know if there's more), I was very interested in the worldbuilding you had related to aliens. One problem that came up, however, was the volume for some sound tracks. The jump in volume from the starting track to the track that plays when night first hits is massive. I would recommend ensuring the volume of all of your music is normalized to the same level. That way, there's no sudden changes in volume that require the player to fix their audio settings mid game.
From here, I'm going to dive into how I normally approach visual novels: to look at the writing for writing mistakes and to ensure the logic of the story makes sense. I will note that I'm already aware of where you're from (did some research early into playing the game) so I know that English isn't your first language. As such, don't view this as me trying to bother you but instead to help you improve the writing. For lines that I feel just need to be tweaked, I'll quote the line, explain the issue and then offer a rewrite for it. For the most part, this will all be in the order I wrote them down in my notes. There will be some notes in early parts that came up later on, which I'll make a note of so you know.
"the developments around me are exciting at most." I assume what Stan is trying to say is that the most exciting things going on are the things around him, but the way this is written suggests that the things around him are, at most, exciting. This implies that they're not all exciting. Here are a few different ways you can write this sentence:
1. "the developments around me are the most exciting thing."
2. "the most exciting developments are the ones happening around me."
One more note: a detail I bring up later on can lead to you needing to change this sentence even more (as well as some sentences I may not have covered in my notes).
"For one, our world is now home to extraterrestrial immigrants who wanted to live among us humans in peace." First, you don't even need to refer to them as immigrants. Just call them extraterrestrials. Later on, you can just call them aliens. This will simplify the writing for you down the road.
Speaking of the above line, there's something I need to ask. As I progressed through the game, it began to feel like this game is more of a slice of life, middle-aged romance story. Are the aliens even relevant to the plot? By this, what I mean is will the aliens matter in later events? Like, will part of the story take the characters into space? Will the story take a dramatic turn that puts more action into it as Stan and Criselda have to deal with aliens? Or will they simply be conversation pieces? If they're only for conversation pieces, that means they have no impact on the story and that even bringing them up is unnecessary.
"When some aliens wanted to stir up trouble, a organization named Special Police Delta is taking care of them as I speak." This is the first big error of mixing different "tenses" in one sentence. You can write sentences as either "present tense" or as "past tense." The first part of this sentence is "past tense," as the use of "ed" at the end of "wanted" implies this happened before. However, the rest of the sentence is "present tense" or happening at that moment. The best way to solve this is to answer one question: is Stan describing what's happening around him in the moment it's happen, or is he recounting the story in the future? If you want him describing it as it happens, then you want to be in present tense. If you want him recounting the story in the future, you want it to be in past tense. If you're unsure how to write these differently, then one thing I would highly recommend is either asking someone you know who is a lot more skilled in writing English to proofread the script for your story and edit it or to hire someone from an English speaking country to do the proofreading and editing (I would offer my services, but given where you live I'm unsure if you'd be able to afford it. Even then, I wouldn't be able to start until November at the earliest). For now, I'll offer two versions of this sentence to cover both tenses. As I go forward and see tense issues in my notes, I'll only call out things in past tense.
1. "When some aliens wanted to stir up trouble, an organization called Special Police Delta would take care of them."
2. "When aliens want to stir up trouble, an organized called Special Police Delta steps in to take care of them."
For the next part, I have to cover the two lines together as they're all part of the same statement.
"Meanwhile, a giant of light born from a young man's immense imagination has just saved a Japanese city from the threat of an alien overlord"
"who wanted to divert his galaxy's supernova energy to Earth, which would incinerate everything in it."
First and foremost, if the alien overlord's actions would've incinerated everything on Earth then the giant of light saved the entire world. In that case, you should say it saved the world, not just a Japanese city. Second, there's some mixing of tenses here as well. "has" is a present tense sentence, but this should be past tense. As such, it should be "had just saved" instead. Lastly, at the end of the second sentence it's written as "everything in it." However, we're not "in" the Earth. We're "on" the Earth. It should be "everything on it."
"What is the focus of my story I'm telling..." More tense problems. This suggests the story is past tense. In addition, you don't need to include "I'm telling" as we already know he's telling a story.
"Try your chances here at the bar and the thing you're searching for is not that too far." While this is a cute line in concept, in writing it's just off. I would suggest this: "Try your chances at the bar and what you want won't be that far."
"And speaking of him, I'm happy for him and Shirley, his girlfriend of four years." This line isn't needed at all. Even if Dexter and Shirley show up later, this line doesn't matter. It just pads things out for no reason. The time I spent reading this could've been spent letting me get further into the story to give you more feedback.
"Even with the chatter inside the carriage, I could figure out the woman behind the voice after some seconds of sifting through my mind." I get the intent of the line, but it's a little wordy and can feel awkward. This would probably work better: "Even with the noise inside the carriage, I figured out who owned the voice after a few seconds of thinking."
"She revealed herself, in all of her 40-year-old, aged-like-fine-wine glory." OK, so I need to be real for a moment here. I'm 41, soon to be 42. I turned 40 in 2024. So much of bringing up age in this just rubs me the wrong way. It also pads the sentence. There's also a unnecessary comma. A better version of this sentence would be this: "She revealed herself in all of her aged-like-fine-wine glory."
"My old classmate back in college, and we both have computer science degrees under our belts." If they were college classmates, we can assume they studied the same thing. As such, you don't need to mention that they both have computer science degrees. You don't even need to say what they studied unless it becomes important later in the story, and if it does you can bring it up later. I'd just write this as this: "My old classmate from my college days."
"Come on, this is one hairstyle I'm most comfy with. Even at my advanced age." Again, the age thing isn't needed. The sentence is also written oddly. I'd recommend this (this will incorporate some native English slang, giving the writing a more natural feel too): "C'mon, this style is comfy for me."
"Man, she still blurts out those inconsequential stuff even at this age." More age stuff and more weirdness. I suggest this: "Man, she still blurts out what's on her mind."
"But then, old habits die hard, like what she was wearing at the time - a jacket tied around her waist." First, this line is in past tense. It's also a bit awkward in writing. Here's my suggestion: "But then again, old habits die hard. Like old times, she still has a jacket tied around her waist."
"And before you ask, this getup's a great way for me to hide my butt." There's an incorrect word choice here in the first part of the sentence, while the second one is awkward. You could even remove this line. If you don't want to, though, just use this: "And before you say anything, this jacket's a great way to hide my butt."
"Nice salvo you've got." So with my knowledge of what salvo means, I don't know what you're trying to say with this sentence. I can only assume you mean it as "a spirited attack," in which case there are far better choices for a word besides salvo. For example... "Nice defense you've got there."
"She then focused on the most important question." This statement doesn't make sense. It implies the question she's going to ask is somehow related to what's being talked about. Instead, this should be "She then quickly changed the subject."
"So, Stan, why are you here in the first place?" This is such a bizarre question. He also lives in this city. That'd be like if you came onto my stream right now and asked me "Why are you streaming?" Instead, what she should ask is "So, Stan, where are you going?"
"I'm about to visit Worried Car 2055 Bar and Grille for my birthday." This would be better written like this: "I'm going to Worried Car 2055 Bar and Grille for my birthday."
"Oh yea, happy birthday! I really can't forgive anyone who forgets someone's birthday, with app alerts and stuff being a thing nowadays." So this entire sentence is an oxymoron. She says she can't forgive people who forget another person's birthday, yet her going "Oh yea, happy birthday" implies she forgot Stan's birthday! If she had remembered, it should've been the first thing she brought up when she saw him. I would say to remove the second part of this line and just have her go "Oh yea, happy birthday!"
"Nice. I'm also hankering for something new." Given that Stan hasn't even been to this bar before, the second part of this line isn't needed. You can just have him say "Nice."
Now before I go on, I want to interject my notes to bring up something: you should have a line where either Stan or Criselda ask the other if they want to go to the bar together. They both planned to go to this place independently, and one of them may prefer to remain independent on this. Having one ask the other would resolve this, as now one implies they're okay with going together while the other gets to either choose to go with or express that they would rather go alone.
"We then spent the next minutes of our ride in silence, anticipating the thrill we would be having." Instead of riding in silence, why not suggest they talk about things that aren't important to the player? This line would be better if you made it this: "We then spent the rest of the ride catching up what was going on in our lives."
"As we departed the train, the night was falling, and the moon shined at its brightest." There is some mixing of tenses here and the sentence is strange given that previous scenes suggested it was the middle of the day rather than closer to sunset. Along with trying to make the previous images look like it's closer to sunset, this sentence would be better like this: "As we get off the train, we see that night had fallen and the moon was shining brightly in the sky."
"If the info on my map app's correct, the bar should be a short walk away." This is more sentence padding. Try this instead: "According to my map app, the bar is just a short walk away."
Next, the hand holding scene. You should 100% scrap ALL of this. First and foremost, Stan and Criselda aren't a couple. Second, Stan himself implied that it's been a while since he had last seen Criselda given that he referred to their meeting as a "reunion." Third, neither of them would know that the other is single. For all Stan could know, Criselda could have a boyfriend or a fiance or even a husband who just isn't with her at the time. All of this ALSO applies to Criselda's knowledge of Stan. So just remove this part and skip to the bar.
"The building itself has a totally radical design unlike the architectural designs I'm pretty used to before." This is another strange sentence with some padding as well. I would suggest this: "The building has a bizarre design that's unlike the normal architecture in the area."
Okay, so at this point I've spent a lot longer on writing this feedback than I'd want. To speed things up, I'm just going to quote the line you have and then give you a rewrite unless there's something I need to point out.
"For one, the entrance stair has an uneven design, which meant I could trip and suffer something horrible if I didn't watch my step." Change this to "For starters, the stairs have an uneven design such that anyone not watching their step could trip and fall."
"Thankfully, we inched every careful step until we got to the staircases that led to the third floor, where the bar resides." Change to: "We carefully walked up the stairs to the entryway and headed inside, making for the staircase leading to the third floor where the bar resided."
The next part where Criselda asks for them to "go Dutch" on payment should be removed. The reason why is that it should already be assumed that they're paying separately, and there are quite a few reasons why. For starters, they're not dating. Since your story uses names more in line with the Western world, it's not normal for friends to pay for the meal of other friends unless such a thing was discussed ahead of time (For example, when one friend says they can't afford to go out so the other offers to pay for them). Second, they both were going to this place independently. It wouldn't make sense for Criselda to suddenly expect Stan to pay for her. Instead, what you should do is replace the scene to have the two casually talking while waiting to be taken to their table. You can use this to help establish their personalities more. And speaking of tables, add a line somewhere about them sitting at a table before they're given their menus. Where you put it is up to you, but add it.
"The aura here was lively, just like what Dexter described in his recommendation." I had to go back to check what the player was told that Dexter said, and there's nothing said about this. On top of that, aura would be the wrong word here. Just make it this: "The atmosphere was lively, making Dexter's description feel even more true."
"After a quick glance at the menu being handed to us by a waiter, we readily agreed to order the following each." So first, this sentence is a bit odd. Second, I need to ask... does what they order come up later? Like, does it have an impact on things? If not, skip saying what they ordered and instead just make this line as follows: "We took a look at the menus while waiting for our server to come by, both of us quick to decide what we wanted"
From here, things get into talking about aliens again. Rather than talk about specific lines (as we're reaching the end of where I got to), I'm going to focus on the strangeness of this scene. It starts with Criselda asking Stan if he remembers a certain show. Rather than simply answer the question, Stan's immediate response is to say Criselda has "good memory" in terms of "stuff like this." This is a very strange response. On top of this, rather than Criselda being the one to lead the topic as the one who first brought it up, Stan ends up taking charge of things. This is bizarre. If Criselda didn't have anything meaningful to say about the show, why did she bring it up? I think what you should do is make it that instead of Stan recounting about the episode he liked, it should be Criselda doing so. Then after she's done, he can talk about how she has good memory. I won't rewrite these lines for you as this sort of change would require you to do some structural changes to the script.
For now, that's everything I got. I hope this helps out!