Thanks so much for the play/review of this visual novel! I had lots of fun and laugh while watching you two going through the story last evening XD
My favourite part is the reactions, comments and critism you guys made there, I'm planning to do a remastered version of this little jam work this year (around June), so these feedbacks are exactly what I wanted! Especially when it's coming from someone who have experience in making visual novels <3
(If you're interested in my responses to the critisms, here are my replies, otherwise feel free to ignore them!)
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It might be disappointing to admit but some of the flaws I was already aware during the one-month jam, they were unfortunately intentional choices due to my very limited capacities, as I only had max 3hr per day. To be honest at the end I wasn't happy with the overall quality of the game, I didn't believe it could really reach to that many people. It's absolutely delightful to hear any feedback:')
My no.1 priority was to deliver this visual novel in time, so I implemented some "smart" hacks to speed things up, one seemed work really well (eg. painting over copyright free photos for background arts), the others appeartly were epic failures (eg. using side-characters rather than full body ones, telling over showing, all these things that didn't require me to spend too much time).
I really appreciate one thing you pointed out as the "format" of visual novel writings -- I have read several visual novels but couldn't believe this never occurred to me as something important to apply to my work. Definitely will keep it in mind!
Romance wise I'm 100% with your opinion. There is a sterotype in otome games that needs the female protagonist to be somewhat bland and inactive, it's easier for some readers to self-insert themselves in the game. Again this sterotype was working for me during the jam for the sake of time-saving. But personally I prefer the female protagonist with personalities as I usually don't self-insert. That's another item on my TODO list for the remastered version:)