Me and my friend (haha oops she already commented) played through this and talked about it with each other a bit. This is a fun project and I definitely enjoyed playing it! Some of the backstory was a little confusing at first (as warned), but I think after the first bit it was easier to roll with it. Basically after I understood the conceit of like 'all of these characters are related to characters from a previous killing game' it kind of clicked into place.
Your character writing was really well done btw! I think you definitely accomplished your goal (writing 17 characters with a unique voice). I enjoyed the intros about as much as I did in the canon games.
Overall, this was a really well polished fangame (right down to the intro video, which was a nice touch). I was checking through the DR tag trying to find things like this, so thanks for being literally the only one to deliver! (I'll probably end up snooping on the Discord to see the rest of Chapter 1, I'm interested in seeing how you tackled the trial and investigation owo)