Honestly as a creative who's seen near-identical textwalls maybe 20 times, and is about 10 years older than the average Tumblr age, I don't think that's the VN and its concept's fault it just seems like a self doubt crashout.
Hopefully the project files are intact for a minor rewrite after this passes.
This has been stuck in my head so I'll leave a spoiler-minimal long comment or mini review.
Basically, get it. It's on sale right now but even full price it's what I got it for plus a drink. I want to see this small team funded to do more and longer games.
The writing is good, backgrounds are pleasant, CGs well done, and the story revolves around two really cute characters. Somehow it manages to compress worldbuilding in a short runtime, as well as different moods: it can go from cosy to exciting to adorable in a matter of textboxes without being jarring or needing to pull a "5 hours later I had calmed down" thing.
There are really not many negatives to speak of, I found it quite short, 25,000 words passes really quickly especially if you're a fast reader, the "2-3 hours" is what it took me for 3 endings and a self-insert playthrough But this is NOT to dissuade you getting it, it's short; ergo it's cheap, so the only real sore point is some emotional pain when I started getting attached then the credits rolled.
(Since some people were curious: self-insert is the same story but no side sprite and you choose name and pronoun.)
Some of the music was also a bit stock with one rock song that's "this famous one but off-brand" which made me chuckle at times I don't think I was meant to, but really no hate, I produce music so I noticed but it really wasn't that jarring. Generally the audio is just ambience, also the VA work is light but high quality. I liked that you can tell the creator's favourite scenes because they had more or full voice acting.
[Minor spoilers in this paragraph] There is also a slight lack of player agency, I guess. There's no 'successfully escape' ending, also I like Crowe but by being naturally hesitant on my first/headcanon go, Aspen took on a hostile attitude and tried to run when I personally wouldn't have. Still I got the yandere ending and I like yanderes so joke's on you. ;) - I get it though, why would a 2 hour game have impactful choice after impactful choice?
Crowe is well done, there's a few yandere trope scenes but I think he was unique especially in appearance. Aspen was a tastefully done and adorable gender-neutral character and I picked up on some things mentioned in the artbook (which is also worth it due to lore exposition and dev commentary!) like the pale skin and bags under eyes, yet they remain well-presented and sharp conveying their willpower to survive and thrive.
Neither character is too 'triggering' - Crowe isn't a psychopath, just protective for reasons this spoiler-minimal mini review won't get into. The story manages to feel mature without needing gore, sex, or hard drugs.
That's all I have to say. Short summary: Short but sweet, totally get it if you like visual novels. The small scope of the game left me wanting more but that's partially a good thing since it's not a self-contained universe. Potentially tropey but actually well-drawn and lovely protagonists.
So buy it, and consider it a donation towards longer better titles.
This is really cool, heard about this from Working Man Games and even though I won't pretend to have played the original it's nice to have a very accessible remake of an old game to hand, and on top of the fan remake work that went into this I must commend you extra for the audio, music, and original touches, especially for a "first Doom engine project".
