itch.io

despite the off kilter and unconventional 2000-s writing style you seem like an exceedingly intelligent and lucid person. that's all i have to say. i wish you the best of luck with your subsequent works.

The sprites are great, the animations are good and flow well. Some moments with the autoscroll are good and pretty charming as well. Music while being mainly or completely royalty free fits the scenes and doesn't detract from the overall experience. 

The humor is crude and personally annoying, but that's a matter of taste. Sexuality is depicted in such a hilariously infantile way that it makes me question whether this is supposed to parody or sincerely represent gay men. These are college students, not middle schoolers just getting their first real kick of testosterone. I sincerely hope some of these "death scenes" get cut from the final release as whatever message or moral you're trying to present regarding social anxiety and trauma gets completely shattered by mood whiplash when you stumble upon one of these. 

I don't struggle with social anxiety so I can't comment on the accuracy of its portrayal here. The story is paced a little awkwardly but I wasn't too bothered. That being said, the latest update felt very vapid. A large part of text seemed to be dedicated to fanservice without regard for the core of the story. I do find it hard to believe someone like Jayce who overthinks simple customer service interactions would be able to call a man he just met a "huge slab of meat on the sidewalk". This makes it seem like interactions are comprised of canon and noncanon tongue-in-cheek moments which make it really hard to follow any outline for Jayce's character. This isn't brave of pushing boundaries, it's just getting unreadable. I hope you realize where I'm getting with this. Some fluff is fine, but this is dripping with excess.

Minor spoilers here. 

The scene preceded by the very first set of choices in the game leading Jayce to have a panic attack is done pretty well. Sound effects, out-of-bounds text and blurred vision combine to show a harrowing scene where the main character loses control over his mind and body. This scene ends with a teacher offering assistance and we're almost immediately greeted with the text: "Your panic attack was conquered by the power of sexy." 

This isn't cute. If you want this to be taken seriously, then write seriously. If not, congratulations, you've created mockery. I don't know what your intentions for this visual novel are, but so far it seems you're more interested in writing pornography. If so, I wish you all the best and I hope your patrons will be satisfied with your work. If you're trying to write something substantive, then I will pray you find the courage to approach your work with more honesty and take yourself more seriously. That is all.