hullo!! first of all, thanks so much for all your hard work to make such an intriguing and engaging game! second of all, it's my first time writing a comment on a game omg so i'm sorry if any of this should be in an email or something instead.
i played Pairanormal for the second time today and enjoyed it just as much as the first. since there's no fast forward or back/undo function upon replay, i decided to space out my plays, as i want to be able to experience as much of the story, dialogue, character development, clue-uncovering, etc. as possible without getting impatient or overfamiliar. (my first play was about a month and a half ago; the right amount of time passed for me to conveniently forget some of the plot points so it was a mystery again!)
*LOTS of spoilers ahead!!*
my favourite schoolmate characters are Laura and Todd, but funnily enough i haven't cleared either of their routes yet. from memory, my first play was focused on Michelle, but it was a little open-ended as to whether i actually reached a romance-end with her or not. i remember wondering since there wasn't a clear end scene with her, or any sort of 'achievement' or memento that told me i'd finished a specific route, like "you just got the Michelle ending :)" sorta thing, and then a part of the gallery that shows which endings i've unlocked and am yet to unlock. i wasn't sure if the open-endedness was part of the point though! on my second play i picked a different way to end my story so it made more sense not to have an end scene with a particular romanceable character (although i think an achievement thingie would still be helpful so i can remember to try to do things differently the next time for a different ending).
it seemed like there was one main event that determined whose feelings are reciprocated to player character - so that even though i was intending to play someone else's route, choosing one of the four (i.e. not all the characters) friends to walk home with that specific time meant it disregarded my previous scenes. but there might've been a different stream of choices i just didn't see this time around!
i also noticed a little bit of discontinuity in the second half of the story - having chosen to spend more time with Laura in the first half, i.e. not visiting the clubhouse or later the cemetery, the second half has some common scenes that refer back to clubhouse and cemetery things that don't super make sense [unless upon a previous play you've gone to those two places and remember vague details about them, which i luckily did hehe].
*plot spoilers over, i THINK! not guaranteed though...*
i like the investigation-hints function a lot as i stress about timed scenes (this game's timings are very gentle! i'm just very slow lol). however the hint frames stay on the screen long after the investigation scenes unless you manually toggle the function off. if you don't, when they do leave by themselves eventually, they don't come back automatically for the next investigation scene. so it's a little bit fiddly, but overall not that big a deal tbh idek why im saying all these words about it!!
anyway, all of this is to say that omg i adore the game, and if i hadn't read one of your replies to someone else's comment about not knowing to including a couple of conventional visual novel game features, i would not have spoken up about any of this bc i genuinely enjoyed all the moments of the game! but in case you are hoping for feedback for future projects and stuff... :) :)
some things i absolutely loved:
- the art style!!!!! i love the lines and colours, all the details and tiny easter eggs (i probably haven't even noticed a third of them but still! e.g. the little frogs everywhere...)
- the queer backstory arc :3
- the differences between every character's behaviours and tendencies and personalities, especially in speech and even in facial expression (i appreciate Laura's stims and stammers, Mari's excited YELLINGS, Michelle's only 79% convincing defensive outbursts, Bret's motormouthing with his hand to his face, Todd's generous laughs, and so on)
- just going with 'they/them' for player character - so simple and effective lol
- the fact that you can ask each character their own opinions and tidbits of knowledge on some of the clues - i didn't catch this the first time so i spent a lot of my investigation time this play finding out more about each character's thoughts! that meant i missed out on a couple of the secret rooms though - but all the more reason to play again. :D
whoah... sorry for such a long comment. i'm very keen to replay again in a few weeks' time to experience yet another different story!!!!!!!!!!!! thanks again for a lovely lovely game!