Above and beyond improvement over Project Kat, imo. A short experience that is worth paying for offered as a peek of things to come. Lacie is a likable and interesting protagonist that feels like a deeper followup upon Kat from the prologue. She's got a lot of rough edges but, she does not feel overexaggerated or mean spirited. Her quips and general social ineptitude are both relatable and entertaining. Her limited meta humor also adds another entertaining layer to her character. I love the mood that the game has going on, with an overarching sense of wonder and sprinkles of horror throughout. The tracks greatly contributed to this sense. Both the combat and puzzles were wonderfully balanced, presenting just the right amount of difficulty to keep me engaged. Despite the many paths, each was fairly distinctive and short enough to avoid confusion while backtracking. The spike minigame, painting chase, and Miss Knives fights were genuinely entertaining and way above my expectations for an adventure game like this. The addition of a skip button after multiple fails is also nice for those who want to play this as more of a visual novel. The art style is quite unique and each character has a great deal of personality in their portraits, humanoid or otherwise. Saki is charming and I appreciate not too much emphasis being placed on his presence. The callback to Kat towards the end was nice and I look forward to seeing more of her, even in this reduced form.
I have a few minor critiques, however. I was a bit stumped on the water color puzzle as I found the the hint of finding something to "carry" to be a leap in logic considering what was actually required to solve the puzzle. Also I noticed a minor typo when touching the paintings, where the text said "scrap" in a context where "scrape" would better fit. I feel the primal demons' presence was a bit awkward outside of the required maze. I would be exploring and just randomly run into one then load back in to just walk past that now unoccupied spot. I did appreciate that I was not harshly punished for this, but as they stand, the primal demons are a minor inconvenience at best. Their appearance feels arbitrary and there is no real incentive to avoid them as these appearances are sporadic and I can simply load back into the same spot without punishment. The maze was nice, but hearing the beast stepping closer and additional visual queues would make it a lot more gripping. Miss Knives' lack of presence during the illusion exploration sequence felt like a missed opportunity. It would've been pretty intense to see her patrolling areas around the house. It might be annoying to traverse if she had free rein over the area, but even restricting her to a section still would've been a nice change of pace.
It would be a shame to see the Paper Lily games end with these two entries, but I genuinely believe Chapter 1 is strong enough to be enjoyed as a paid short standalone experience (although I appreciate your generosity in making both free). Overall, this demo was exceedingly polished and a welcome surprise coming from Project Kat. I hope this feedback is somewhat useful and look forward to seeing this series continue, however long it takes. It may be an ask, but I would love to give feedback on any proposed changes or further developments.