Just want to start by saying this game is such a wonderful idea and gave me so many fun memories of a similar fan-made dating game called 'Love is Strange' for the Life is Strange fandom several years back. This is a great selfless undertaking you are all doing for the RE community, and I truly appreciate all of the work that's gone into this to date. When I heard my favourite Dimitrescu was the love route in the demo... I had to play! Team Cassandra, let's gooooooo! XD
Things I loved:
- The way Cassandra has a coffee cup permanently with her. XD I adored the backstory around this too. Poor baby. *sob*
- The map in the journal of the campus grounds. The layout and locations make me so excited to see more. I adore journals being utilised in games. Would love to see more of this in the full game where we can click on and explore scraps and snippets of journal info. :)
- Cassandra's weapon being seen inside a glass cabinet in her campus lodging. Nice touch! (Also, I didn't miss the huge coffee maker on the kitchen counter, haha!)
- The appearance of Elena as a minor character. Loved that. Especially as Cassandra and Elena share the same face model. :)
- The dorm music track was really nice. Think that one was my favourite.
- I was initially sceptical of Cassandra being written as a theatre diva and thought this would be more Bela's angle, but as the writing progressed, it all started to make sense and fit her quite well. :)
Feedback / Improvement suggestions:
- The intro had a very lengthy unillustrated text sequence up to the part where we need to choose the Theatre, Dorm, or Council. It had no images on the black background like the envelope that came before, and no full images like what comes after. I feel like that stark black background could have done with... something... during this long reading sequence.
- Minor spelling issues such as "dets" when it should be "deets", and should it be written "gorge" as a slang shortening of gorgeous, not "gorgs"?
- There's a paragraph that could do with a rewrite as it mentions the word audition three times in three consecutive sentences. It's a bit repetitive. The specific paragraph is: "Another week passes, and it is time for auditions. Cassandra calls you, and you meet up to start auditions. You can see a line of people waiting for auditions going out the door." (I think the 'it is' could be contracted to 'it's' to flow more nicely, too.)
- Would have loved to see some character art for the minor characters who spoke to us, like Elena and the Stans. Or maybe this was a creative choice so that only the people we can romance are given form?
- Keeping on the same subject, it was a bit confusing to have the art for Cassandra remain on the screen when the Elena dialogue tag was showing as speaking to us.
- There's a missing text message from us to Cassandra when we text her at around 2am in the morning. We still see all of the previous message history with her on the phone screen, and we see Cassandra's immediate response appear as a reply to our 2am text ("HEY, YOU'RE NOT SLEEPING NOW! LATE NIGHT PROJECT?"), but we don't see what we had sent her to get this response. Would have liked to see that text so that the messaging history is complete. :)
This is all I can think of from my first playthrough of the demo.
Wishlist:
- Can we be edgy and have an option to ask for tea in the coffee shop? (This is the Brit in me talking! XD)
- Unlockable things for exploring alternative route paths such as photographs, concept art, goofy things, etc. (Similar in style to the Love is Strange unlockables.) Unlockables are a lot of fun and make people want to explore alternative routes to collect new art and feel a sense of completion. I remember 'Love is Strange' also having fun unlockable achievements pop up with fun names, depending on our choices. The cute little drawings for those icons were cool. Is this something that would be possible for this game or too complex? (I think your game is designed with the same programming code: Ren'Py?)
My overall experience in the demo was a sense of investment in the way things were unfolding and wanting to know what's next. I can't wait to play the full game and see if my character can help Cassandra with her coffee situation so she can finally get a good night's sleep. :)