I played Project Kat so I was really excited to pay Chapter One. There were a lot of things I really liked about the game-- the main character is solid and has good motivation, great character design, perfectly spooky areas, and solid puzzles (I still love the mechanic of there being multiple ways to solve every puzzle). However, the area with the elevator.. I didn't have a good time. I thought the game was glitched because a monster kept jumpscaring and insta-killing me.
One of the things I liked about Project Kat is though there was no real chase or monster to contend with, there was still a deep sense of foreboding, knowing something bad was going to happen, that made it good horror. Jumpscares personally stress me out and I think it ruined the experience of Paper Lily for me. I ended up handing the computer off to my partner, who got so infuriated at the constant insta-deaths that they just brought up the pause menu over and over to prevent any monster spawns, which they found to take away from the game experience that they had previously enjoyed experiencing with me. I ended up quitting the game during the Miss Knives sequence at the painting, which, while really well done, I saw the painting, figured it was an Ib reference, handed it off to my partner, saw the chase a la Witch's House, and decided this was a bit too out of my league. I'll watch someone's playthrough on Youtube just to see what happens. There were a few moments I really wanted to replay because I saw things I had missed online or on the Discord server, like certain interactions or secrets, but specifically the elevator section just completely kept me from wanting to play the game again or even finish it.