Oh no, I'm so late! >.< I totally forgot to check the Yuri Game Jam. So when I realized, the first thing I did was of course to check for a new Team ANPIM game. <3
I downloaded this one without looking at anything and hopped into it totally blind. Love Goes Toward Love was another great read! You always deliver.
A cheesy game, you say? More like a whole cheese wheel. xD This one is exactly what it says on the lid, I suppose. It was very enjoyable once more. I think you did just fine, making this story about adults. We can always use more stories that aren't about Highschoolers. Not that there's anything wrong with those, it's just that so many "weeby" works are set in Highschool, so variety is always welcome.
I read this game in two sessions and stayed up way too late, considering I had work the next day both times. But just like our characters during their night out, I couldn't stop myself.^^
Some thoughts:
Good job with the inside joke of repaying the "life debt". Little things like this make stories more believable and entertaining at the same time.
"Nevermind always makes me antsy." This! I was like "I know, right?" when Juri thought that. Mh, good! I can't explain why, but I loved this detail. "Nevermind" really is a pain in the butt.
I wondered for a while what the deal was with the unusual first-aid kit that Juri carries. But then, when Romi cut her finger and Juri was all like "It's showtime", I got totally hyped. ^^ Nice idea.
While I loved the whole game, I do also have a tiny bit of criticism or suggestions this time:
I noticed that the text would sometimes break with the present tense that it is written in. It's not a big deal and I realize that checking every line is a lot of work, especially for a game that's offered for free. But I thought I'd still at least mention it for the future. When a sentence is suddenly in past tense, it does break the flow of reading - more so than a simple typo would.
My other point is more important, and it's about the Romi POV part. I usually appreciate multiple points of view in a story, and I love that you used first person perspective for both. It's just the best. However, this time, I would have preferred not getting that second POV. It was good, don't get me wrong. But I don't think it was worth it to stray from the established POV for just this one scene. It didn't include anything major that had to be shown in this way, and you didn't switch perspectives anywhere else. I think, in order to keep the story as immersive as possible, the author should ideally never give the reader any information that the point-of-view character does not have. It's of course normal for that to happen when there are multiple POV characters, and it has its own advantages and lets the writer set up cool traps and stuff. For this particular Kinetic Novel, though, the sudden and short change of POV did more harm than good, imho. The scene itself was great, but considering that a POV change kind of "derails" the reader, it carries a certain risk. Especially in this story, where we get to know all characters solely because of their interactions with Juri, the Romi POV scene stands out a lot. I think having more than one POV makes more sense when it changes regularly throughout the story's progression, when the story is split into chapters or when the POVs focus on (mostly) separate storylines. TL;DR: The decision to switch the POV should be a conscious one. But - that's just my general advice. The most important thing is that you write what you want to write. That's what we're all here for, after all. :)
Finally, I looove the whole afterword! Thank you for sharing those personal thoughts and the details about how the game came to be. The sacrifices we make for the sake of yuri... ;)
Actually, since you mentioned your studies, I got a bit of trivia to share. A few semesters ago, there was this really boring lecture at my university. I ended up bringing my laptop - not because I needed it, but for entertainment. So I picked a lonesome seat in the very back and put on "From Salt to Sugar". It felt so wrong yet so right, haha. Good times.
Thank you once again for your dedication. I'm very much looking forward to the next entry! :D
Rakios