Heey!!!
That was a quick reply, much appreciated! The visuals were great, did you create them yourself?
I get what you mean by being ashamed of being sentimental. It so often happens that I translate something to my liking, but feel that no one else would share my opinion or thoughts on it. Well, I am limited to what the original scripts have to offer, but you: you got all the freedom and independence in the world to do whatever you want. Don't forget that it is your game, not someone else's game.
If you start to hide what you love and work for your audience doesn't get the chance to experience what you wanted to deliver. Intro screens are annoying, sometimes, yeah. But only if you are forced to watch them. For most games, you can just click them away or decide to give them their time and read along. I don't know if that was an option because I really wanted to read it :D
Additionally, I think that it is YOU making this game special. It was not the fact that it is a visual novel that made me pick it up, it was not the backstory I got to read on the page - in fact, I never play visual novels - it was YOU convincing me to try your game because I could feel how much you are into this.
For the performance part: I don't know why my PC struggled. I admit it is quite an outdated computer, but I run games like Dead by Daylight, Smite, Overwatch or Spirit Detective without any bigger issues. That may be the reason why I expected everything I see to be wanted as it is. It added a little bit to the atmosphere, quite surprising. The text transitions, however, did give my PC a little hiccup sometimes. I am planning to look into your game again RIGHT NOW and stress-test everything I see. For the first run, I tried to look at it as a casual gamer - usually, I test itch games to their very limit when it comes to bugs, glitches and performance.
I am not too sure either anymore what I meant with the scrolling part, but in case I run into it I will make a clip of it and direct it to you via Discord! I still have not seen all the choosable options and texts and I am looking forward to seeing what you did.
I'll make sure to join your discord, but please be aware that my PC is running the entire day, mostly, without me being here - it may take a bit for me to respond. (different time zones + I work night shifts etc.)
Finally, to my "extremely kind offer" - I'd feel honoured to help and add such an amazing project to my portfolio.