Hey hey! Aww, thank you so much for taking the time to type out your thoughts on the game :3 I really appreciate it <3 I saw the notification of your post when I woke up this morning, and reading everything you wrote gave me a smile to start the day :D Sorry my reply is a bit slow >.< I started typing it out earlier, but then I was rambling on so much that I realised I had to stop to get other stuff done xD

I'm super glad you enjoyed the game :3 I guess the high amount of bad ends + the yandere-ness will put many people off >.< but it was important for me to show that Kuro isn't a monster. 

I feel like if I had some kinda funding then I could have made the game even better, because I wasn't 100% happy with the sprites myself >.< Tim (who voiced Kuro) made a good point when I spoke to him that the sprites suit his voice pretty well, which I agree with :3 Buuuuut, at the same time, I feel like most of the Kuro's look a little too feminine. If I had the money to hire a sprite artist, I could have had Kuro look the way he did in my head while I was writing, but instead, I was stuck with doing my best using the creator I bought because it was the only thing I could afford, haha. It didn't really contain much to help you make male characters, so I had to try and make Kuro look as male as possible while using female parts xD Which is why the bodies look kinda odd, cos they're technically flat-chested female sprites (aside from you know who in the hidden route, cos that was the only male sprite body in the set!) >.<"

It makes me super duper happy that you think the story is of a commercial sorta standard :3 I think a lot of people pass over playing indie VNs (especially free ones) cos they just assume that they will suck/be low quality by default >.< So I'm glad you decided to give SR a chance \^_^/

You don't need to apologise anyhow :3 I really enjoyed reading your opinions, and constructive criticism is great because it's helpful to know what sorta things people like, and what they dislike about it for future projects :D It would be cool to remake the game in the future with better sprites, but it would require quite a lot of money I think because of how many there are >.<

I'm also glad you enjoyed the voice acting :3 A lot of people seem to be pretty put off by English voice acting because of bad dubs and stuff, haha, but I think the cast did an awesome job, and I'm so grateful that they gave their time to help me with the project! I guess a lot of VNs come from Japan, so people are used to hearing Japanese voice acting, but I love English voice acting too, so ideally, I'd love to have all my projects voiced in English. When it came to telling the voice actors to make kissing sounds in the script, I was so embarrassed to ask them to do that x3 but I guess it's all part of the job for them.

I'll go ahead and try my best to answer your questions below :3

SPOILERS

In regards to all the Kuro's that you meet in the initial 5 routes, I hadn't decided 100% on exactly what their place was in the hidden route. They could either be a bunch of different Kuro's that you don't actually meet, or, as you mentioned, they could all be the same Kuro. The same goes for the protagonist that you play as in those 5 routes I guess, it could be either way since I decided not to actually go into detail within the game. However, the way it was in my head was that the protagonist you play as in the first 5 routes is the same person, and the Kuro that you meet in those routes is the same Kuro. So in the hidden route, that particular pairing is considered a successful pairing :3 Whereas when you start the hidden route, you play as clones in the idol and cadet scenarios who are considered unsuccessful, and so they are terminated. 

I always thought of it as though protagonist number 26 in the hidden route is the same protagonist you play as in the original 5 routes. The first Kuro you meet as 26 (the one whose throat you slit to set him free) in my mind, is the same Kuro that you were with in the other 5 routes. 26 knows that he's Kuro, but she doesn't really remember much else because of all the wipes, and poor Kuro is forced to remember everything, which is why he's so weary and defeated. That Kuro has been through the 5 routes with you that you play + many more that you don't get to see in the story, so he's kinda just given up on life cos he can't see a way out of just being treated like a lab rat. He still dearly loves the protagonist, but he's so broken down that he just does what Isaac tells him to by that point because he no longer has the will to resist. 

That's how it was in my head, but if you think about it like that, it's kinda sad because you spent all that time with that particular Kuro, and in the end, the only way you could save him was to kill him >.< and killing him doesn't even save him because they can just transfer his consciousness to another unit. I figured it would be better to just be kinda vague about him in the end, because I wanted to move the story on to focus on 339 and 13's story together. In a way, I suppose 26 lives on in 339 since parts of her mind were transferred after she eventually kills herself. I probably didn't explain the significance of 26 committing suicide in the story either >.< cos she is doing it so that she can escape the cruelty of the world around her, but also, she's been pushed to resorting to that because of Isaac, and Isaac was waiting for one of the clones to make that move because he wants his weapon to be willing to sacrifice everything to save humanity. 

Since you don't actually see what happens to that Kuro whose throat you slit, anything could have happened to him, though probably nothing too good xD In my head, he was just locked away again (like he usually would be in between training sessions) after 26 kills herself. Later on when Raine opens all the cell doors + sets the alarm off though, he would have been freed from his room. We never see that version of Kuro again though, so after he was able to get out, anything could have happened to him. I guess I probably should have given the poor guy a little more attention to help clear things up with his personal story!

Kuro number 13/Dollmaker is one of the oldest/first units in the lab. He went through a fair few simulations in the beginning, but ultimately, they decided he wasn't performing as well as they would like. At that point in time, they didn't have tonnes of clones, so rather than eliminating them, they would just sorta dump em in a part of the lab that wasn't used. So 13 was replaced, the experiments continued over the years, but instead of being deactivated like what happens to the newer clones while you're playing, 13 was just wandering around the restricted section on his own for years, which kinda made him even more messed up >.< So when they started dumping the failed protagonist clones down there, it finally gave 13 some company. That's when his obsession with trying to fix the broken protagonist clones started x3

In regards to running the simulations and such, you're not stupid at all, I didn't really explain it very well in the game :3 Isaac was pretty crazy, so he probably could have found a much easier/better way to build a weapon. The main reason he opted for the method he did, is just cos he had gone a bit mad xD None of this is explained in the game, but in my head, after it became too dangerous to live on the surface, OG MC + Shiro would have been living a fairly normal life together underground when Isaac was more stable. Isaac was trying to think of ways to fix his mistake, and after lots of failed attempts to eliminate the creature, he just went kinda insane and got the idea in his head to start using his own son, and his son's girlfriend. Raine would have just been a colleague at the time they first went underground, and she slowly fell in love with Isaac over time (before he went crazy xD) Anyways, I'm getting off-topic from your original question, sorry >.<

The reason they ran all the simulations was because they wanted to create some form of suffering between the protagonist clones and the Kuro clones. Isaac was super duper insane, and he was convinced that in order for the OG MC to be the ultimate weapon, her mind also needed to be altered, not just her body. He knew that OG MC and Shiro were deeply in love, and he thought that the perfect combo of that love + suffering would increase her powers exponentially. Isaac wanted the clones to suffer, but ultimately still love each other like the originals, so that he could implant all of that love and suffering from the clones into OG MC eventually. This is why you see the idol and cadet clones get scrapped, because they're not showing the right sort of emotions he wants to see in a scenario. Isaac just wanted to extract all the love and pain that he could from the pairings. Admittedly, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but Isaac is supposed to be kinda losing it. Although, I guess his plan actually kinda worked in the end, even if it wasn't exactly how he intended things to play out xD

Isaac still loves Shiro deeply, and can't bring himself to hurt him as much as he's happy to hurt the protagonist. Which is why he chose OG MC to be the weapon, not Shiro. He couldn't bring himself to potentially sacrifice his own son. So instead, in his own twisted way, he thinks he's kinda doing Shiro a favour by making him watch the progress of his experiment. The Kuro's are all forced to remember things, unlike the protagonist's, because much of the suffering Isaac wants is taken from them, not the protagonist. Isaac wants to watch the Kuro's try to save the protagonist over and over again in the scenarios, forcing them to sink into deeper despair when they realise that there's no way out. The Kuro's are in love with the protagonist, so they can't help but keep trying, even if they know they can never succeed. This is one of the reasons their love for the protagonist becomes more twisted over time. They have some idea as to what's going on, sometimes they wanna lose themselves in the simulations just so they can have some form of a life with the protagonist, even if it's only temporary. By repeatedly wiping the protagonist clones, it's like torture for the Kuro's, because they remember the love that they shared (from the faint memories they have of OG MC + Shiro) but the protagonist clones remember very little. So a lot of the suffering comes from the poor Kuro's trying to get the protagonist to love them again the way it should be. In the end, because the Kuro's get so messed up trying to pursue love, it results in all those bad ends for the protagonist, so then the protagonist is also suffering too, which gives more suffering for Isaac to extract from the protagonist as well as Kuro. It's weird, I know xD Blame Isaac for being so crazy x3

As for poor Shiro's organs ceasing to function, that was just because they had been underground for a very long time. I didn't really say specifically how long, but it would have been many, many years. By the time it's reached the point where the story within the game is taking place, Shiro is much older than he would've been when they first all went underground. Living underground in the lab for so many years with the same recycled air was pretty unhealthy, so a lot of the folk still alive down there have slightly modified bodies to survive. Isaac was able to solve the problem of Shiro's failing organs by creating artificial ones for him, but they're kind of experimental and not really designed for being used in the outside world where the air and stuff on the surface is different. Along with the organs, Isaac also made other modifications to Shiro (like the sword weapons he's able to summon.)

I was a little unsure as to whether or not to include all the fourth wall breaking stuff, but I decided to in the end. I kinda wanted the reader to feel similarly to how the protagonist would feel in that they couldn't exactly be sure of what was real and what wasn't. I find the concept of solipsism pretty fascinating, so a part of me wanted the final ending of the story to be that only the protagonist was truly real, everything else in her world was just part of her own mind. So while it did technically happen, it possibly only happened within her head, and she had no way of telling, but at the same time, I didn't want it to be that, which is why I didn't actually specify anything in particular xD So the ending is pretty open to interpretation I guess! The reader can decide for themselves what the truth is. I just kinda thought, it doesn't really matter if something is real or not, if you're living it, and you believe in it, that's enough because it's real to you. To be honest, I kinda confused myself in the end >.<" haha.

When it comes to the guy who is constantly breaking the fourth wall and calling the player by the name, Anathema, who you finally get to meet at the end, this is a character that I hope to develop over time :3 I want to try and feature him in most of the projects I work on somehow, so that players can slowly learn more about him over time, which is why it's kinda just like a little introduction in SR. I'm not 100% sure how I wanna have his story play out yet, but you definitely haven't seen the last of him :D

I feel you on the not having much of a connection to OG MC + Shiro front, haha. I should probably have tried harder to show more of their backstory. I think the reason it came out the way it did in the end was because I was supposed to care about them, but while I was writing the story, I ended up falling in love with 339 + 13 instead, so they kinda ended up stealing the show with their story. I kinda wanted to just end the game on the scene where 339 and 13 sacrifice themselves, but I figured that would be too cruel x3 If I had of had the resources, I think it would have been cool to have some flashback scenes of the past showing OG MC + Shiro  + the others from before everything went to shit! I was very limited with what I could do with sprites though since I had to rely on creator software T_T haha. I would love to be able to work with artists in future who can draw sprites for me instead :3 If I had money, I would've hired an artist, but I'm incredibly poor >.< I tend to survive on a diet mainly consisting of 40p cans of baked beans xD I will try to use Kickstarter in the future though, because if I could get some kind of funding, it'd be a huge help, and would allow me to make things even better :3

But yeah, I totally get why people wouldn't care too much for OG MC + Shiro, I guess it's because I ended up not really caring about them that much either (compared to the other MCs + Kuro's anyways) so that ended up showing in my writing >.< In my heart I think 339 and 13 were the true heroes :3 

I hope I managed to answer your questions :3 If not, feel free to keep asking away cos I don't mind at all! I know I kinda suck at explaining stuff cos I tend to just ramble on forever, and then I get myself lost and confused xD So yeah, feel free to ask anything else. Thank you once again for all your kind words! It really means a lot to me to know that you've enjoyed playing through the game, and I hope that you'll also enjoy my future projects too :D Aaaand, I'm sorry my reply ended up being so long x3 I'm so terrible for rambling, haha. Hope you have an awesome week, and that you're managing to stay safe! <3