Yeah, there is a lot of positivity here, which is wonderful ^-^ and I can still hardly believe it + really appreciate it :3 But what you don't see is the negative stuff I get sent privately to my email, haha. The positives still massively outweigh the negatives, thankfully, but it doesn't stop the nasty stuff from really getting to me and massively demotivating me when I read it >.<
Manly playing the game was both a blessing and a curse, haha. A blessing because, otherwise, hardly anyone would even know the game exists still, and the level of support has been incredible :3 But a curse because it has also attracted a number of people who, while they profess to love the game, have proceeded to make demands of me in private, saying that if I don't include X or Y content for Castor/ia, or if I don't change X or Y that they don't like about the project, then they will trash it and everything else that I release o.O Of course, there are also just haters too >.< And worse than that, but I won't go into more detail because my arm is still broken at the moment, and it's still quite difficult to type with just one hand for now x3 So I can only apologise for that! If I could use both hands, I'd type out a much more in-depth response!
Firstly, regarding art aspects, there's not much I can do to change most things because I'm not an artist :( (that's why there are no CGs in the game, though I am commissioning my artist friend LPB to create some for future updates :3) All the sprites are assets that are edited by me in order to avoid using them with their default appearances. I spent many hours in GIMP recolouring them and adding additional facial expressions that they didn't come with by default. All the backgrounds are assets. And yup, you probably guessed it by now, the switch-like console is also just an edited asset x3 The UI is the only part of the art that's mostly made by me. Some of it is a combo of edited assets + my own stuff, but most of it is stuff I managed to put together in GIMP. As I said though, I'm no artist. I can't draw to save my life >.<
All of that amounts to giving the feeling of an amateur made game because the game is technically made by an amateur, haha. I have no formal experience or training in any aspect of game dev x3 It started as a hobby, out of wanting to make a game that contained the stuff I wanted to see because, at
the time, I played a lot of VNs and none quite had what I was hoping for in a game - an English-voiced male yandere character, where the yandere romance was the only romance, but there was still a proper story behind it all (and so, I made my first game around that, Solipsism Reigns :3) I may have gained a lot of experience over the years since I started making games, even completely switching engines at one point. Heck, I even managed to teach myself how to start making music so I could include some original tracks in my games, but still, I am not an artist, nor a writer, nor a coder, or composer. Everything I've ever done is self-taught. And making games is a hobby that helps me to cope with my depression and other mental health problems x3 As my friend once put it upon seeing my first game finished, - 'I don't know how you did it when you can't even draw, but boy, you sure are resourceful!' haha.
I'm also unemployed, so when it comes to game dev, all I have to put towards projects is the stuff that people kindly donate :3 Which means that, for example, I can't really afford to hire an artist to draw a better-looking version of the device that MC plays Winter Wish on. Cos any funding needs to go towards CGs or voice acting.
There is a key you can press to force skip the title screen animations, but I can't remember which one it is, and I can't check since I can't go on my PC atm with my broken arm x3 I know what you mean though about needing a more efficient way to quit and stuff cos it is quite slow.
Won't say too much regarding bipolar MC cos the jury is still out on whether I am bipolar myself or not xD My therapist once suspected I might be, but now she thinks perhaps I might have ADHD as well as my autism, and that the two together at war sort of mimic bipolar traits. Anyways, I do get what you're saying, but the game is supposed to be all black and white with little to no grey area for both MC and the love interests. The player can indeed make MC less believable and more unstable by ping-ponging between cruel/kind options and acting polar opposites, but everything will have consequences in the end, and there is a point to being able to do it all, it just doesn't really show yet in the demo like a lot of things cos the story isn't far enough in for a lot of stuff to make much sense >.< Even if a player goes full kind/sweet mode though, it still won't result in a typically healthy relationship with any of the characters. It will be less crazy than the alternative options, and probably considered the 'good' route or ending, but yeah, it still won't be healthy, because the whole concept is about how black and white thinking and extremes aren't healthy x3
Castor and Castoria might be the only available love interests atm, but I was planning to have many more routes than that (2 of which are already partially written, just not in the demo yet x3) For example, Cana, the childhood friend mentioned in the demo, is a love interest with their own route, and depending on the player's choices, Castor/ia and Cana could well wind up encountering each other, where there are, of course, consequences :3
The stuff to do with Kiaria Corp and the AI I really can't say much about without walking right into spoiler territory. All I can say is that it has to be at the beginning for things to work the way I eventually want them to. It might seem nonsensical now, but there's a reason for it x3 Trust me, once it's actually implemented, it will make sense. The problem is that almost everyone thinks the game is mainly Castor/ia's story, and that the story begins with MC and Castor/ia, but that's only because that's all that's playable for now. Because that's all I could finish in time for the game jam it was originally submitted to. In reality, Castor/ia is actually just an option in a much bigger game that I had planned to make. The story doesn't have to start with Castor/ia. Heck, once the full game is eventually finished years from now, a player could play without even encountering Castor/ia if they chose to do so. I think I might have briefly mentioned it in the past on Patreon/Ko-Fi, but I don't really remember.
I would've left out the AI and Cana branches from the demo to save confusion, but the problem was, I didn't have space to make backup copies of my working copy and the public demo release. In my working copy, the branches that are inaccessible in the demo do actually lead to more content, but it's unfinished. Because I don't have space for backups, it was easier for me to leave those branches in and block them off than to completely remove them and then have to add them in again >.< It's stupid, I know. But my PC is old, my hard drive is full, and it was pretty much my only option :(
And yeah, I already touched on Cana, the childhood friend, but to give a solid answer to all those questions, basically, everything you asked is already written into the story :3 So all of those things will be answered. It's just I haven't been able to actually make any of it playable yet (part of it is playable in my working copy, but I'm nowhere near finished coding in all of the stuff that's been written already >.<) But yeah, Cana will have their own playable route. Player choices will determine if Cana and Castor/ia discover each other's existence, and if they do, there will be consequences according to the choices previously made.
Hehe, I would say more too if it wasn't for my stupid arm >.< Typing atm is just so slow and awkward. I appreciate you taking the time to write everything that you did though :3 Constructive criticism is always helpful! Often, people will say they don't like X or Y, but offer no suggestions on how to improve, so it's always nice to hear different opinions on stuff with actual suggestions. It's just a shame that there's not much I can do about some of the points that you raised, like the art stuff >.<
And being completely honest, it might actually take 5 years or more for me to properly fully finish the project xD the scope is pretty big, and a lot gets in the way of progress :( My mental health issues mean my productivity comes in spikes. I find it easier to work on multiple projects at once rather than just one. Negative emails, comments, and reviews make me want to quit the project because, at the end of the day, I'm making it for fun, and if it stops being fun, I have no willpower to keep going >.< Funding is difficult because voice acting is expensive, and I can't even run a Kickstarter or anything because of my personal situation. I live in a country where because of my mental health issues, I have to accept government aid in order to survive and be able to afford food and stuff, but while accepting that help, I'm not allowed to try to make any sort of income, even if it's just a tiny amount, it's not allowed, and if I did, I would immediately lose my aid, then I wouldn't be able to afford food >.< Aaaand, to top it off, one of the voice actors is unlikely to reprise their role even with payment offered. Soooo, yeah, there are a lot of barriers that make development quote slow :( haha. And that's not even including the fact that my arm got broken in several places a few weeks ago xD so I haven't been able to work on anything since then, and I'm stuck like that until it's healed.
I'm glad you like what little is there so far in the demo though and that you can see potential in the project :3 With any luck, it will be finished eventually! Just gotta keep taking it in baby steps I guess.