Thank you SO so much for the kind words and taking the time to play our game! It really means the world to us to have people write these thoughtful comments about the work we put in for a year and half, it makes our accomplishment much more worth than it already is :)
As for your criticisms, it's very kind of you to organize your thoughts into sectioned articles to let us know exactly what you think and why. I can go through some points and maybe clear up some misconceptions and behind the scenes for our game development.
You are very correct about sensing that there might have been "more in between" such as the mention of the birthdays, UIs, and the abrupt feeling going through all the routes in general. This project had to cut down some of the concepts that were advertised early on, so that we could make the most of what we already had. For routes, we just wanted people to pick and choose which girls they wanted to see first. It might end up confusing some people because of the way the calendar shows up, and how it seems to be structured in a chronological pattern. For music, we ended up overdoing it with over 100 original tracks, so we might overstimulated in places that wasn't exactly appropriate all the time. The dev section was always meant to be a sort of "here's some more stuff we had behind the scenes", but in the end it might have come off as something unintended, so that's our bad. Currently there's no plan to initiate a major "overhaul" update, but we're very glad that people liked the game so much that they ask for an update. We intended from the beginning to make this a community oriented project, so it was not at all our intention to make it seem as thought there is "too much to read" in our credits. We appreciate the time and effort from every single participant who worked on this project. We have a google doc version of our credits list at hand, so I'll upload that to our game page here, thank you for mentioning that.
I really hope it doesn't seem like we just wanted to be done with the game and get it off our hands. We might have bit off more than we could chew at times, but we still take immense pride in the facets of the game that came out to everyone's liking. And for those areas that need polish, we are grateful to have had such a learning experience and opportunity to share this with a wonderful community like this one.
But I don't want to write solely to address any concerns or criticisms. We REALLY appreciate your kind words, not only in your analysis of our areas to improve, but also your comments about the game as a whole. As one of the music leads for this project, it really warms my heart to see that someone really likes our music!! As you mentioned above, ALL of our music (asides a few specific choices) are completely original. We went through a rigorous process in conceptualizing and writing our music, and had a ton of fun with the different styles and ideas our team of musicians brought to the table. I'm really glad our efforts have reached the community! And I definitely share your sentiments about the other teams as well - the writing in this game was greatly enjoyable to read through, and the art was astonishing to look at, and the UI was such a nice touch to resemble Haachama's motifs. So much effort and time and community participation went into this game, and I hope more people come forward to share their thoughts on the game as well!
Personally, this was my very first venture into game development, music team management, and holding a staff role in any major project development. I'm so so proud of the work we did, and the experience I learned from it. I'm glad I was able to provide some support and assistance for Haato's Diary, and seeing people like you comment about their experience with the game just puts a smile on my face! Thank you very much for playing our game, and for providing a detailed overview of your thoughts on our work.
- Conkos