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(+1)

Congratulations on creating this. You should be proud. There's a lot to unpack here (which is a good thing), but forgive me if I ramble. 

Pros:

You have a very good talent for prose. This is surprisingly long, but I was never bored reading the words. There are human feelings that are inexplicable, but immediately relatable -- such as when the player walks into Clash's and feels like a stranger, or how you mention you can sense Clash's emotions without a face -- and you convey those extremely well. Clash is an interesting character, and I enjoyed hanging out with him. Without spoiling anything, I didn't see the ending coming, so it was a fun surprise.

I love the noir theme, and that comes across well. The dialogue is good and moves everything at a reasonable pace. I really like the clash of noir and sci-fi.

Cons:

There's two major issues that I have. The first, the "game" part of it. The nature of interactivity makes me immediately relate to the character, which is both a gift and a curse. It's a gift because I was very invested in what happened, but a curse when choices were in direct conflict with what I felt was right -- such as "accusing" people when I didn't really want to. Even before the reveal, I just kept feeling more and more like a jerk, even though I kept selecting the "compassion" option.

The stat system is neat, but is tricky in a game of this length. I'd love to know the different endings, but I don't want to go through the same narrative just to see it. I also wished I knew something about what it was doing, because as the nature of being an experience gamer, I tried to "min max" so I always selected the same option, which hurt the narrative a bit. 

The other issue is structural problems such as consistency and world building. I've already discussed problems with the protagonist, but even Clash takes a turn that I don't feel is earned at the end. He was very likable and polite in most instances. The world building, while fun, is a bit messy, insofar that I didn't have a really great sense of the rules. I walked into Clash's office thinking sentient robots were strange, or even "rumored," but that conflicted with with everyone talking to Clash like he was a normal guy, and conflicted greatly with the ending.

As I mentioned, I really like Clash as a character, but I have an issue with him pulling out deus ex machina technology to answer questions and make me look like an idiot. Why didn't he just say that out loud in the beginning? Why did we waste our time? You try to address it, but I didn't really get there.

Final thought is there are things that I felt were going to be setups that never pay off, and things that come out of nowhere that weren't set up (which I mentioned with Clash's tech). The choice to give backstories to some of the characters didn't really play into anything other than to build to the ending, which made it feel more distracting and unfair than a good misdirection. I really got hung up on the asexuality of Victoria, and how much that was focused on really led me to thinking it had some kind of meaning, but it appears like it was just there to be amusing, which pulls me away from a lot of what's good in here.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with it, and none of these problems couldn't be fixed with a few more passes. I feel like if you had focused your time a little more on your strengths, and dialed back the scope a little bit in terms of the interactive nature, most of these problems would have been alleviated. I can't take points away for ambition, though, and you really have something here. Nicely done, and congratulations again.

Thank you so much for the detailed review!  It always hits hard (in a really good way) when someone takes the time to tell me what I did good and not so good.  It helps me figure out where my strengths and weaknesses are, because honestly I think I only have weaknesses. 

I will say that a lot of the cons you mentioned, interestingly enough, are things I actually debated with myself about putting in.  Like the stats; since this game wasn't going to branch as wildly as the first Clash, I didn't know if I should bother.  But then again, I wanted that same connection to the games (even though both already had Clash (lol duh)).  So I decided to go with it and see if it worked.  A lot of what I do is going with it to see if it works.  xD  Or they were meant to be character development and/or foreshadowing for another game...which, again, I'm still learning how to do that properly without confusing the audience (you should've seen my first web-IF piece, I tried to advertise two games at once, one of which wasn't going to be finished for another month or so, and it was a mess).  Or I just had no idea how to keep the scene moving so I pulled something out of my ass.  I will fully admit to doing that.  ^^;  

Seriously though, this game was hard to write.  I had a lot of struggles with both writer's block and my own self-doubts that I could pull off that kind of ending.  So again, the fact that you gave such a wonderful review really made my day!  

(+1)

You're welcome. And I understand and relate to everything you said. I struggled with writer's block with mine, too, and anyone says "the developer never thought of THIS!" is fooling themselves. You're talented enough to have considered everything, and everything is subjective. I just wanted to let you know what worked for me and what didn't, something that will vary from person to person.

I wasn't aware there were multiple games in the series, though. I'll have to check it out. Clash is a cool character.