Finished my first playthrough, and wow..... just wow. I absolutely love mystery/horror stories, so to see it in the tags got me excited, and I was not disappointed! That ending.... and how some of the characters acted or did... just, I can't say too much without spoiling it, but this was one hell of a sinister ride!
First off, let's go over technical aspects. Loved the artwork, everything is nice to look at and it's really neat how everyone has multiple poses which really helps make the characters feel more lively. The texting system looks really nice too. My biggest complaint, but this is a demo, is when I press Esc I find no way to return to the main menu, so there really wasn't a proper way to exit unless I'm missing something obvious. Also some of the red blinking in that one scene was irritating to the eyes, might recommend an option in the preference to be able to turn off things like that if desired.
Now onto characters...
I really like Lane as a main character. I feel bad for him, his situation is extremely vague but you just know he is suffering hardship... how bad exactly is still unclear, but I am really hoping he catches a break since he seems so stressed. I also like how he has a visible character sprite in the textbox, it's extremely rare to see in bishoujo titles.
So far, I think Holly, Nat, and Ms. Webb are my favorite characters. Holly is adorable and funny and over the top, Nat seems to be caring despite her demeanor and I dunno I just really like her, and Ms. Webb is very nice and has been so helpful to Lane. Don't know what to think about Ros yet, but there's potential for some fun banter there. I don't really like Alice, but I must admit I love a lot of her dialogue, but her as a person is just... ugh I did not feel sorry for her getting slapped lol. Evan, as Cain described, is loyal, a good friend to Lane overall even if he probably has a tendancy to overstep his bounds... like with the key lol. The Principal is.... *shudders*. And Cain, I initially did not like him at all, found him to be such a jerk and overly hostile toward Lane but that ending may be having me hate him a bit less.
The story itself seems there's a lot more to it. It has the feel of a normal story which decides to take a dip into sinister and unsettling, whether it will be in supernatural ways or not is unclear. But there's a lot of unanswered questions and I am curious to see how the story unfolds. There's so much we don't know about a lot of the characters, including the predicament our main character is in! Really looking forward to the full release. It'll be on Itch, right? I'll definitely be saving up ^^