Hihi!! I was someone very excited for the game, I recently played it and since you're allowing feedback I thought I would leave some notes on my experience, sorry its so wordy (':
- The way Macaque is characterized honestly is really offputting to me as well, but others here have already dipped into that so I will leave this point as is and move on to other things I haven't seen too delved into!
- It's understandable you only have one writer currently, but I would genuinely suggest hiring someone else to help, or at the minimum have a teammate help with spellchecking (at some point in the game the word 'tattoo' is in the dialogue for no reason? It's not even a misspelling so I was pretty confused) since this will help the game have more solidified and cohesive writing!
- This is not a 'one size fits all' point, but the characterization of Y/N seems very lackluster. I recognize that this is a dating game for a semi-niche fanbase, and so obviously a majority of us are fanfiction fans, but having that be the bulk of our personality felt a little disappointing to me (I don't mind a few wink and nudge references here and there though!) I know that it's really annoying to get suggestions on what to do with your personal project, but if I may be so bold I would like to bring up the idea of non-important options! Maybe instead of Y/N going to bed to use chatbots and fanfiction, the player could choose a low-stakes option list of things that gives a brief dialogue, like "Use your phone, Read a book, Catch up on your favorite show" that sort of thing! That way the player feels a little more in control of their Y/N and you can have multiple avenues to add references and other neat writing details (:
- Let me start by saying I really think the art style is cute! But I do have some comments on that as well. Others here have already mentioned it so I won't harp on how rough it generally looks currently, but I would really love to see the artists spent more time on perfecting their craft! From artist to artist, There's multiple points in the demo where while Macaque is shirtless, his pec and ab details are clearly done with a thinner line weight which was a little distracting, considering the rest of the character art is done in a nice and thick line weight. Backgrounds are super hard, trust me I know, but the perspective of Y/N's bedroom needs some work, again it's the sort of thing where it is distracting to notice. It looks really well drawn, but the bed and desk symmetry make it seem like they're angled on a corner, not a flat floor and wall area.
- Mechanic wise, the text would look cleaner and be easier to read if the dialouge popping up in the box would change with every switch in scenery or character sprite. In the game when the text box has more to say but, for example, Macaque hasn't changed sprites yet mid conversation, the text just adds onto the current box instead of moving to a new one. I don't know if it's easier that way from a game-building perspective, but as a player it genuinely was kind of hard on the eyes and had me confused multiple times trying to find where the next chunk of dialouge was. If everytime new text was added in a new box instead of adding onto the already existing one, it would look much smoother!
Also just in case I didn't make it clear, I do want the best for this project, and I am very well aware that this is currently a demo. Even though some of my points were more opinionated, I think it matters nonetheless since general opinions from the fanbase can really help a project!!