itch.io

I've only played the demo so I cannot say that much,  but I'll try my best.

First off, I love the concept and premise. The idea of watching someone's personality develop from nothing in a simulated world and what this means for their existence is very interesting to me, and it can say a lot about the nature of humanity and what makes us who we are.

The aesthetics are great too! From the art to the UI, everything conveys the surreal and simulated feeling the game is going for. The music supports this feeling too. You always get the feeling that something is off or fake in some way, and given some of the things that are revealed later in the demo, this is very well done!

Some nitpicks for me are that the voice acting (which in itself is good) is not affected by the voice volume slider and instead responds to the sound effects. If you're like me and you read faster than the voice over, then you'll have to choose between constantly interrupting the voices or not having any sound effects at all. A second minor gripe I have is that the puzzles are a little too easy for my liking and can be easily cheated even if they weren't. Adding something like a timer could help with this, but, on the other hand, I can also imagine them being easy is intentional since it's still early on in the story.

As for the writing, I have two suggestions for improvement.

First, and most importantly, emotions and reactions are not described very thoroughly. The game opens with 159733's motivation of not letting anyone feel lonely because that is what they had to go through, but this feeling is only stated and not fully described. Specifically, they describe feeling 'unloved, but not necessarily hated', but this remains rather vague because it is not compared to anything tangible and not supported by an example. While it is clear from a logical point of view, it does not involve the reader as much as it could. It's the difference between stating that a character was neglected as child and describing how their parents were always at work, that they would never pay attention while playing with them and would always claim to be busy when the kid wanted to talk about something. One is a factual statement while the other takes the reader through the experience and lets them fully understand what it is like. 

It also happens later on when Maephkastel's voice is described as containing 'an amount of emotion' never heard before. This could mean anything and the intensity is also left a little vague. It's not clear if he's sad, angry, nervous or perhaps something else, and the reader doesn't get a clear idea of what this amount of emotion sounds like. Is his voice raspy or surprisingly quiet? Are there pauses or stutters? When? What could this mean? Again, you should lead the reader through the experience and let them feel what they're supposed to feel. Similarly, 159733's reaction to the reveal of Maephkastel's age (won't say more because of spoilers, but I think you know which part I'm referring to) seems to almost be nonexistent since they immediately ask regular questions afterwards. This is supposed to shatter everything they know, but I didn't see that in their reaction. 

When people mention 'show, don't tell', (although I personally don't really like the phrase) this is typically what they mean. It can be argued that emotions are supposed to feel more subdued at this point in the story given that they are still developing, but then this should also be described in some way. More importantly, the motivation of both characters seems at least partially emotional so that implies they are important here. The best piece of advice I can give here is to imagine what certain emotions feel like physically and what emotional reactions should look like on a person's face or body. You don't have to do this for every single reaction as that would slow the pacing down to a crawl, but for major reveals and 159733's introduction, it could help a lot to spend some more time establishing what their experience feels like.

Second, although it is related to the first point, 159733's insistence on talking to Maephkastel is contradicted by their earlier shyness. They have to really convince themselves to interact with the other embryos and remind themselves that they are not a bother to them, yet will keep going after Maephkastel despite literally being told to go away and leave them alone. I understand logically that 159733 is trying to not let anyone feellonely, but the ease with which they seem to do it makes the earlier nervousness feel unimportant. If 159733 were showed to have doubts all throughout their conversation with Maephkastel or not described as nervous in the first place, then this would not be a problem, but as it is now it seems that her personality does a 180 turn pretty quickly. It could also work to (very quickly) describe 159733's interactions with the other embryos and then shift into the introduction to Maephkastel while making very clear that they are literally the only one not socializing. Then you can emphasize 159733's mission while still describing their reluctance and nerves when approaching Maephkastel. This could be an important kind of growth for 159733 but it's glossed over pretty quickly.

While writing it's important to consider what a character is thinking and feeling in any given moment and how they would act because of it. That obviously makes it difficult to get to the scene you're trying to get to, but that is again a moment where you should stop and think about how a character would realistically act and how you can change that.

Overall, don't be discouraged! I know it might seem like a lot of negative feedback but that's only because I'm trying to be specific and thorough enough that you understand what I'm trying to say. I still think the fundamentals of the story are solid and that it's headed in an interesting direction, but the writing style could be more immersive at certain points. The reason we read stories, after all, is not to get a logical explanation of what happens but to empathise with the characters on the screen/page and through that learn things about ourselves. And don't worry if you struggle with some of this; it's one of the most difficult parts of writing and almost everyone struggles with finding the right balance, but it's also one of the most rewarding for both sides.

So, in short, I can definitely see the potential and the concept is really interesting. I'll check out the full game for sure and I hope I've given you something useful. Keep writing!

I already knew I'd like it from looking at the page, but damn, I did not expect it to be this good! You already know something’s wrong (or at the very least going to be) from the start, but really seeing these characters in action was an amazing experience. Personally I just love stories with deeply flawed characters and this one absolutely did not disappoint. I especially like Dylan, because I have somewhat of a soft spot for brutally honest characters like him.

The writing style is great too. It’s hard not to get invested when everything is so clearly described, and especially for a story like this it’s very important that it’s done right. So good job on that!

There are really only three possible downsides I can think of.

First, this story really isn’t for everyone. That’s not just because of the themes and triggers, but also the length. Three hours for a prologue is very long, and that can turn some people off. I don’t mind that personally, though.

Second, it’s kind of quiet most of the time. The sound effects are fine, although the volume does differ quite a bit (unless it’s intentional that the loud ones almost jumpscare you), but the lack of background music might be something you want to look into. It can add a lot to a game, and it would be a shame if you didn’t use it. Then again, the silence can also be used to punctuate the sound effects more, as you’re kind of doing already.

Third, although you shouldn’t change that now, I think the hallucinatory moments might have been here a little too early. There’s enough drama and tension already given Aaliyah’s poor treatment of her friends and adding the psychological factor didn’t add much for me. Depending on where you go with it, you might be adding an additional dimension that’s not entirely necessary and distracts from the main plot. I assume it probably has something to do with recovering from the trauma surrounding that person’s death, but again, I haven’t seen the link that clearly yet and it doesn’t seem necessary so far. But like I said, you can still do a lot with it and it doesn’t have to hold you back necessarily.

Lastly, have you played Echo and Doki Doki Literature Club by any chance? Because I can really recommend them if you haven’t. This story feels like a unique blend between the two and I couldn’t help but notice some of the similarities here. I think you’d enjoy those games if you like this sort of thing. (Also to anyone else reading this comment: check those out if you haven’t yet; they’re really good).

Of course! No problem. It's something I wish I had been given more of when I started, so I'm happy to help.

Writing the whole story in one stretch is indeed a challenge, so you can be proud that you finished it at all. And yeah, don't be discouraged from my seemingly critical review (although I can clearly see that you weren't). I think it's cool that you started writing and I'm looking forward to seeing you improve.

Here's the review I promised!

The (extremely) fast pace and sudden turns certainly take some time to get used to, but it can work if they work towards a coherent goal. If there is one thing I could give as advice, it would be to identify that goal. Stories are (in my opinion/experience) written to evoke a certain feeling in the reader and/or send a certain message.

This is a little hard for me to find in your case, but it seems to be that you can experience the strangest things and still move on with your life afterwards. This doesn't quite come across because both the opening and the ending don't seem to be clearly built around that idea. I understand that you are more of a discovery writer and like to see where the story takes you, and that's a completely valid approach, but you should still revise certain parts once you're done.

Very concretely, you could structure it in the following way:

1. Describe how ordinary of a day this is and how ordinary the main character is. They appreciate the small things in life, like the birds and the quiet woods. Suddenly, they get the opportunity to explore this building and so they decide to, just once, be a little adventurous.

2. Inside, everything happens the way it did now. Perhaps with some more detail, but I understand that's beyond the scope here.

3. Once they are back outside, the main character again learns to appreciate the more quiet aspects of life and learns to be grateful for what they have.

Overall, I can see the effort and think your free-flowing writing style is interesting. The important thing to learn, assuming you want to keep writing and this wasn't a one time thing, is to later look at what you have and think about how various aspects of your story can contribute to a larger whole.

I understand this review is probably a bit overkill for the kind of project you were trying to make, but I hope it can help you develop your craft. Just keep writing! I can already see you have a unique style, and now it's just a matter of practice to make it work for you!

Thanks a lot for the kind words and the feedback!

I indeed was trying to flip the idea of friendship overcoming everything and seeing how imperfect people might act if given the choice. The shorter format was somewhat of an experiment as well, so I'm glad it paid off. Personally, I prefer longer stories but I might experiment with more short ones in the future.

Similar to your project Painpal I wasn't able to give as much attention to this project as maybe I should have due to a lack of available time on my end. As a result, parts of the project were rushed and made without proper attention to the visual and sound design. I probably won't change it now either, because I'm happy to just move on, but I still appreciate your feedback a lot. 

Thanks a lot for the encouragement! It's all definitely a work in progress still, which, yes, also includes images for the opening bit. Adding onomatopoeias for the raven is a good suggestion too, one I haven't thought of before (and I learned a new word too)

You only had a week? That makes it even more impressive! Given that time frame it all makes a lot more sense and I can see why you had to make certain choices (and more importantly, needed to stick to them so you wouldn’t lose progress).

Regarding the issue of the different audience, you could be right. I’ve had a look at the jam comments and they all seem positive so you probably made the right call there. Of course you can’t know how they would have responded if it had leaned more into the VN side, but it’s safe to say they enjoyed it the way it is. So if you were to submit it again for NaNoReNo, perhaps it would make sense to have two versions (still on this same page, of course, but with an additional file).

I’ll be sure to have a look again if you do submit it for NaNoReNo because I'm curious what you'll change and what you'll keep. Not sure if I’ll comment since you already have my feedback and I might not be able to say anything new, but I’ll see.

Great work as usual Mimico (and co)! I do think I enjoyed this game a little less than your previous one, but I can still see the passion and effort and I know to respect that. (It might seem like a lot of negatives, but trust me, I enjoyed the game a lot. I just personally focus on ways something can be improved and that’s why it might seem like I’m trying to bash the game when I’m not.)

First what I liked:

1. The production quality is once again of a high level. There are a lot of visuals, the music fits well and the movement and animations use the engine to its fullest. I also love the title screen and UI designs.

2. The writing is clear, concise and with a proper pace. It’s very easy to get through the game and keeps you immersed in the experience.

3. The twist in the bad ending is very clever and well executed. I knew the devil was going to betray me (because, you know, he's the devil), but the precise act and its unnecessary cruelty surprised me in the best ways. At the same time, it doesn’t feel completely out of left field and clearly makes me feel like I got cheated and that I was an idiot for not seeing it coming. (Personally, I expected that I would trade my life for my daughter’s, so witnessing something so close to what I was expecting but much worse was horrifying in the best way)

4. The good ending was very nice to read (especially since I experienced that one last), even if I found it a little hard to believe that the main character simply got away. It’s nice to see the main character getting rewarded for doing the right thing after going through so much. It was exactly what I needed after so much misery.

Here's what didn't work as well for me:

1. The final test in the evil route isn't much of a choice. It makes sense that killing the man isn't an option in the good route, but not having it as an option for the bad one takes away the aspect of it being a choice. If the point is that it’s no longer a choice and that the main character just watches it all fall apart, then that could work, but then it should not have been a timed choice and there should have been some more description of how the main character feels a strong compulsion he can’t control (or something along those lines).

2. The choices during the zombie section are not always a matter of deliberately spreading despair but instead are about survival ethics and situational judgment. In some cases it’s almost impossible to know what the good (or evil) choice is. This is not a problem on its own and suits the setting, but it conflicts with the section’s main aim of spreading despair on purpose.

3. Having the scenarios take place in alternate timelines is great for creative freedom and prevents plot holes, but it does carry the risk of reducing the weight of these moral decisions. Personally, there were times where I’ve wondered if what was going on was even real instead of some hallucinogenic test of character. On top of that, it feels easier to ruin these people’s lives when you don’t have a history with any of them. This can work, but I’m not sure about it for the next reason.

4. The tone is generally light hearted but the situations are surprisingly serious. It’s a tough thing to balance and I’m honestly not sure how I would do it differently, but I was left feeling like there was a disconnect between the grave situations the main character finds himself in on the one hand and the casual banter and gamey aspects on the other. Combined with the previous point and the more serious tone towards the end, this makes it hard to know how you’re supposed to feel about what’s going on. Another part of this might be that the evil deeds are not quite ridiculous or petty enough to be funny, but I’m not sure if changing that would fix it.

I think most of these problems could be remedied by addressing the final point below, though:

5. I think you might have prioritized the quantity of situations over their quality, but this could also be personal preference. I think it might have worked better to see just how much you can and are willing to ruin the life of one single person in exchange for your daughter. This might also make the comedic angle easier since there’s going to be a point where the amount of suffering one person goes through just becomes ridiculous. Imagine subsequently getting fired, broken up with, evicted, run over, run over again just because, having one of your shoes stolen, etc. If you do this, you might also get more of that feeling of having reached a point of no return and that stopping now would make everything pointless. I think this might also be why I liked The Hidden Gift more; it was more personal, even in its sub-stories.

You can’t change that now, of course, but it might be something to consider for the future. I understand that your preferred kind of story is one consisting of smaller ones (in this one, as with The Hidden Gift), but it could be worth thinking about the degree of emotional investment from the reader for your next project. Then again, just because the rapid fire decisions didn’t work for me doesn’t mean they won’t for anyone else.

And just to reiterate: you really did a good job! I’m simply hoping to provide a different perspective and I can only encourage you to keep making these games. As a final comment, here are two technical bugs I encountered:

1. The coin counter stays the same after loading or rolling back a decision. I imagine that probably wasn’t intended.

2. I let the timer run out during the final choice and it took me back to the zombies.

The characters, CGs and backgrounds are incredibly well drawn and suit the game's atmosphere. The point and click mechanic is a nice touch and switches up the dialogue. The soundtrack is also fitting, though it did get a bit repetitive at some point. Or maybe that was just me.

At the same time I feel like the game lacks in content a bit. The point and click feature only contains one item per room and that made me wonder whether it was really used to its fullest potential. The sound effects that are there are approporiate, but I sometimes felt like there could have been more. Especially for opening doors, moving things and the shotgun blast. 

Lastly, the writing seems to build up to a larger story than is actually there, mostly because of the references to Ellen. Ellen could probably be removed entirely without it affecting the story too much. I also think the beast appears seemingly out of nowhere. To be clear, the scare at the end was properly handled; that one being sudden is appropriate. I was talking about the moment where Kate looks out the window. It probably would have worked better if there were more signs of some kind of monster building up to this reveal. I think the story could be improved a lot by not mentioning Ellen and by adding more moments where the monster is heard stalking through the house and by adding more signs of previous incidents prior to its first reveal.

Thank you so much for taking the time to play it and all the kind words! 

I agree that it has a slow start and I also struggled with this while writing, but at the same time I'm not sure what I could have cut to make it go faster. I was also worried that I might rush to the first fight too fast if I didn't have those earlier chapters, but in hindsight that might have been due to me feeling a little insecure about it. For the future I will definitely see if I can pick things up faster.

You have a point about the naming feature. I wasn't sure if the main character's identity mattered that much beyond their history as a husk and could therefore work with any name or gender, so making this changeable and ambiguous made sense to me. I guess it's still a point of improvement, though, because it shows that I could have given more commitment to fleshing out their identity rather than leaving it open. I will definitely keep this in mind depending on what I do next!

And thanks for the compliment with regard to the combat scenes as well. I actually have to admit that the black scenes were there because I was on a major time crunch and could not finish all the art in time. I'm glad it still worked out for you!

Copied from my review in case anyone wants to respond:

The premise is interesting enough, but I do think you can do more with what you have and can add additional content beyond the artwork.

Let's start with what I like: Ember's personal struggle is interesting and it's easy to root for her because she's both sympathetic and competent. She's clearly determined to free her mother and has a plan for doing this. Her character art is also pretty. So, at its core, you have an interesting story to tell.

At the same time, however, you might want to look into the game's presentation. I'm not talking about the missing art here, because that kind of work simply takes time and you shouldn't rush anythign for a game jam. Rather, it's about your Ren'py settings. First of all, you didn't add a background to the main menu even though you could use one of the cgs from the game or perhaps make something else. The main menu is one of the first things people see, and changing it to be at least different from the default could really help you. Second, all the characters have the same color name. This is really easy to change because you just have to add who_color="[color code]" to the part where you define the character. Lastly, the font is still the default and probably does not suit the setting you've chosen. Specifically, you might want to turn it into Cambria, Times New Roman or another font that suits a fantasy/historical setting. Changing the font is not that difficult when you know where to look, so I recommend that you look up how to do that. Lastly for the presentation, I would recommend that you add transitions like 'with dissolve' when you show and hide characters because now they just pop in and out of the screen. You don't have to change these things right away, but you probably want to get take care of them as soon as possible because it helps to make your game more appealing to newcomers.

Lastly, I have some small notes on the writing. The story itself is good so far, but the text could use more description because it kind of feels like you're rushing through it. For example, you might want to give a more thorough description of what the Ember/Ivar illusion actually looks and feels like. This not only improves the emotional impact of Liebert's reaction, but also makes it easier to understand what's going on. It could have just been me, but it was not clear to me at first whether Ember was acting or whether the son had actually appeared from some kind of afterlife, which could be solved with more description. The other comment I have on the writing is that you seem to have two different ideas for your opening. First it shows the mother, then Liebert, then talks about the mother again, and then goes back to Liebert. Especially the first shift from the match scene to the performance is a little jarring, even if it is explained later. I think you might want to rethink the order in which you show these scenes. You can either start with the mom and how she was captured, then cut to Ember's plan and execution, or start with her performing for Liebert and then later on reveal why she did all that. Personally, if I had to recommend something, I'd say that you could start with the Liebert performance and end that on Liebert agreeing to some sort of favor without saying what it is, then show Ember's history with her mother and state her goal of finding her, then show the checkpoint and how Liebert is conveniently on guard duty and describe him doing the fake checks, then round off with an explanation of how Ember found out about this man and what they agreed. That way, the reader can already sense the conclusion of Ember's plan as it is explained to them. Of course, if you do start with the scene of Liebert and his son, then you should also add some background information on Ember's history as a performer or something along those lines so it becomes clear what she's actually doing in that moment. These are just suggestions, though! Ultimately, it's up to you how you tell your story.

Copied from my review for others to read:

Unique take on death and what comes after and very well executed! I especially admire the courage to not only allow the game to end randomly, but to even ask the player not to open it again. Personally, I lasted eight spins and didn't play again after that.

I was surprised to discover that I actually ended up caring about death/gregory despite the short time I spent with them. I think this is partially because I like their more restrained personality, but mostly because his views on death and the meaning of life will be very relatable to a lot of people. It's also hard to not feel a little bad for the situation they're in.

I really have nothing else to say. This was very well made and perfectly captures the mixture of fear and uncertainty that comes with death.

Copied from my review:

I ended up enjoying this a lot more than I thought. I'm not usually into fluffy and wholesome things like this but I figured I should give it a shot and I was absolutely impressed.

I can very clearly see the effort you put into this game, from the animated intro and backgrounds to the variations between endings! I am very impressed with what you've done and you truly deserve to get a lot more attention for this game you've made.

The only downside for me is that I prefer longer stories because those give me more time to get invested and get to know the characters, so for that reason I did not feel as much emotional attachment to the story as I otherwise would have had. That said, I think the length is perfect for what you set out to do. If the stories were increased in amount or length it would probably become boring at some point, so I think this is actually the perfect length. So, in short, you've done really well and I am very impressed.

As I also shared in my review, I think the story is too short at this moment for me to really give proper feedback on it, but I'll try my best.

To start with, I think Trindle is interesting and that there's a lot of potential to show scenes where you gradually get to know her better. I do think there are two things you could improve here, though. First, you could leave certain things a little more mysterious to entice the reader to keep reading. As it stands now, she shares the story of her parents and why she lives alone right away, but you could also consider hiding these things away a little more. Second, ending three does not contain any actual details where you get to know Trindle. It says something along the lines of you starting see more in her and she in you, but does not actually show this interaction. I would recommend that you show this as a conversation between the two characters or that you share the story in exposition afterwards. This is a moment readers will be looking forward to and they should see more of it if you want to make it memorable for them. Perhaps you could share more of her history with monsters or people and also hint at those things earlier on.

Other than that, the art looks clean and well made even without color. I think it could add a lot to the aesthetic if you add some soft colors to give it a little more of a cozy feel. If you want, you can also leave the outside colorless to make the cabin more appealing by comparison.

Lastly, I noticed that you jumped to the same choice menu and then used an if statement to check which label to jump back to. There is nothing wrong with that, especially for a project of limited scope, but in the future you could consider using call statements instead of jump statements for this purpose because they automatically return to the label they were called from when their lines are finished. There should be plenty of documentation on how to do this.

Overall, I'm giving it five stars because I think you did well considering the limited scope. I don't know if you're planning to continue development of this project, but I'm interested to see where it goes if you do.

Hey, I just read your progress so far. I don't have much to say on the plot and lore yet except that I'm interested to see where it goes and what you have in store for us.  (Oh and belated congratulations on the one year anniversary of your visual novel!)

Especially William is interesting as a protagonist to me because he's just very different from me personally, so it's fun to see how he thinks. Things like sneaking out and worrying my parents (again) is something I would never do, but it's entirely in character for him. So you did that very well. You also properly characterize the parents because I have a pretty decent idea of what they're like, even with the relatively short playtime.

So in terms of what you're planning for the story, I think you're very well on track!

I couldn't help but notice that you didn't write a devlog for version 3.0, though. Maybe this was intentional, but you could be missing out on potential readers. Itch allows you to mark a blog as a major update, which will make your game appear in the most recent and new and popular tabs again. You might want to do that, assuming that 3.0 is indeed substantially different from what came before. Related to that: one of the images on this page is outdated. It still shows an image of a werewolf I assume is copied from somewhere when the game itself already has a proper sprite.

I also have a few points of improvement, but those are mostly technical things I wish I had discovered earlier myself. Hopefully they help you in some way.

It might seem like a lot, but don't worry. The length mostly comes from me wanting to explain myself properly.

Presentation:

-You probably want to look into changing the font and the interface because those are still the defaults. There's plenty of premade ones you can use for this purpose so long as you credit the creator. Like these, for example: https://itch.io/game-assets/tag-gui/tag-renpy. Even if they're premade, they still add some personality to your project. But do make sure to check what their requirements are in terms of credit and things like that, because that might vary. Same with the font. You can stick with something common like cambria or times new roman, but you should at least change it from the ren'py default. 

-There's nothing wrong with using real life pictures as backgrounds, but you should edit them a little first so it doesn't break immersion. The image of that village in the alps (I'm assuming it's from there, at least) is not cropped properly so there are black bars at the top and bottom. You want to make sure the aspect ratio of the image fits that of the game. Additionally, you might want to put some kind of artistic filter over it because that generally looks better for visual novels than an image without one. I personally use GIMP (https://www.gimp.org/downloads/) for both of these things, but most image editors should be able to do what I just described. Maybe it won't even matter because you're already working on getting artists, but I figured I'd mention it just in case.

-For the scene where William falls deeper into the cave, it would probably work better if you have the images directly transition into each other instead of having black in-between. It better captures the motion of falling (or maybe that's just my opinion)

Some programming things:

-You put "PROLOGUE" and other chapter titles in the text box, but it would probably be better to display it as text on the screen. Either directly with text 'prologue' xalign 0.5 yalign 0.5 or by making a cover for the chapter as an image separately and displaying that the way you would normal images

https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39750

https://www.reddit.com/r/RenPy/comments/chr6te/putting_text_in_the_middle_of_the...

-You use two different images for a screen for day and night (the living room and village each have two variants), but this can needlessly inflate the size of your game's files. You could try changing the alpha property of an image to make it darker (more transparent, technically. But it has the practical effect of making background images darker because there's a black screen behind them). So

show background:

    alpha 0.2

You can also do this by adding a matrixcolor as an overlay to the image, which gives it a different shade. If you do this with a dark blue color, the image will appear darker.

show background:

    matrixcolor TintMatrix("[html color code]")

https://blog.argentgames.co/post/2021-03-22-renpy-layeredimage-colortint/

https://html-color.codes/

Obviously, this is only practical when all you need to change in the image is the brightness or add a filter.

Writing style:

-You typically don't want to front load your lore like you did. It's not that long and doesn't contain unnecessary details so it's not that bad here, but ideally you would introduce these details once they become relevant. Perhaps a better method would be to have William recall parts of this story as he's being chased by the werewolf? (Unless he's not supposed to know that piece of history, of course)

-You don't have to say "end of prologue" when you already give a chapter title immediately afterwards

-You could use something like Microsoft Word or Google Docs to write your text in first and then copy-paste it into ren'py. That way you have a spelling and grammar checker available. Because you can already write it in the format of w "..." and all that so you won't lose time translating it into code. I noticed a number of spelling errors and I won't list them here, so this is the best piece of advice I can give in this regard.

-The writing style can get a little repetitive because sentences tend to have a similar structure. Most of them go something like "I go into the living room, waving at my parents." There's nothing wrong with writing like that, but you could consider mixing your sentence structure up a bit more because I started to notice that most sentences had a structure of "I do x, y-ing as I do it." So, going back to my example, you could also say "I wave at my parents as I enter the living room." or "I walk into the living room. My parents turn to me when I enter, so I wave at them." All of these sentences are grammatically correct, but it helps with the flow of your story when you vary them like this. Most of this was in chapter one, though. It already gets better in later chapters, so I'm assuming it will be okay. Maybe you're not a native English speaker either, so then it might not be reasonable to expect you to notice these things. In that case you can just ignore it because it's not that big of a deal overall. I just figured I'd bring it up because sometimes it's harder to notice these things when reading one's own writing.

-You switch back and forth between past and present tense. "And with that I book it." is present tense and is immediately followed by "I wanted to break the line of sight...", which is past tense. You mostly use past tense in your story so I'm assuming that's the intended one. So be careful not to add present tense by accident.

-You generally don't want to write a setting note like "back in William's home". I understand that you want to transition the scene there, but this looks like you didn't know how to do that properly and just gave up trying, which can turn some people off. So, instead, you could write it as a transition. Something like "While William was facing a danger not yet known by his parents, the mood in the living room grew heavier and heavier in his absence", and then you move on to the scene like you did. You did this correctly when switching back to William, though. So I'm guessing that first time was an exception.

-It doesn't make much sense that William can't see the spear while he's outside, but can see it inside the cave. Why are you only introducing that detail now instead of earlier? (Really specific, I know.)

-You might want to be careful with how often you use exclamation points. They can be very effective, but they can also lose their effectiveness when you overuse them. https://www.tckpublishing.com/3-mistakes-when-writing-emphasis/. You don't use them that much, so it's still okay, but you sometimes use them for internal monologues when you don't really need them: "just live my life in unknowing bliss  moving forward as if nothing has ever changed at all!", "I wanted to never let it out, lock it away where it would never be seen again!", "Maybe nothing has changed!". If you do want to add extra emphasis to these lines you could also describe how William feels a sudden surge of relief, realization, horror, or whatever else is appropriate in that case.

The reason you want to avoid this is because using an emphasis like that can come off as insecure to some readers, as if you feel the need to clarify that something is exciting or important. I get that you want to show how William is frustrated and confused, but you already convey that with the way you write the sentence (which you did well in most cases, by the way). This is a very minor point of course, so there's no need to get hung up over it or remove all of them everywhere. I would just advise you to use them a little more sparingly in the future. I should also mention that you used the exclamation points properly for dialogue, so no need to worry about that. I was mostly talking about internal monologues.

-Another technical writing thing is something called a comma splice. You might have heard of this one before as it's a common occurrence. https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/maybe-you-like-comma-splices-maybe-you-dont. Basically, you want to make sure that complete sentences are never separated by commas (formally, this means they have a verb and a subject). You do it here, for example: "Don't be sad Alex, there will be a time when you will be able to go in the forest on your own aswell." This comma should have been either a period or a semicolon since it's connecting two full sentences.

Having said all that, I should clarify that these points aren't meant to tear down your work. Like I said, the story itself is good. It's mostly the presentation and how you convey things that could be improved. 

I also want to add that some of my points with regards to writing can also be seen as subjective or stylistic choices. You don't have to follow every rule perfectly all the time. What I'm mostly trying to say is that you should consider how these things might impact the flow and impact of your story.

Yes, of course. Just to be clear, I totally understand what you're doing and why! I think your ideas are all good and I can see why they're in there. It's just the fine tuning of how to implement them that could be improved for future builds. 

Like James having a lighthearted meal with friends while introducing them to human food. Good idea, but would pizza really be the thing he'd choose as a somewhat professional martial artist? Or perhaps he could only give them pizza while clearly stating that he's not eating any because of his strict diet or something (or did he already do something like that? I can't remember). 

Same for using the upcoming duel as a method to introduce more backstory and lore while also building up tension. Good idea, but why a sword fight instead of boxing or wrestling? Both kinds of duels would make sense in this setting but the second one gives James more of a realistic chance.

Having a premonition to introduce the villain and add some mystery is also a good idea. But you should think about how this affects the characters at that moment.

I'm sure you get the point by now. Your ideas are good, but you could think a bit more about how exactly to implement them the best. Again, no need to change things you've already sunk tons of effort into! (aside from the small/easy issues, maybe). I'm not saying that you have to do this and that to make it better or anything like that. My advice would just be to explore the options you have for implementing each idea and then choose the one that fits best with the characters and setting.

Oh, and don't overwork yourself. We all understand the struggle of balancing school/work with hobbies. There's no need to rush or stress yourself out.

It's a lengthy comment, but I hope this feedback helps a little. The short version is this: line art and general story pacing are very solid, but you can still improve your coloring/shading and certain story elements might require more thought in the future.

The line art all looks very solid to me, but some of the coloring could be improved for the characters because most of the colors are still rather flat. Like Dylus only having one shade of purple, for instance (aside from shading). It kind of looks like the colors were filled in with a paint bucket tool because of that. I understand that this simpler look is a stylistic choice in a way, but you could still benefit from looking at other furry artists and how they draw things like fur. 

 A related thing about the art is shading. Light not only creates shadows, but also leaves highlights on the objects themselves. You can think of this as a kind of reverse shadow, where light is reflected back when it hits an object, leaving a slightly brighter spot. There's plenty of tutorials on how to capture this in art. In short, I think the fundamentals are all good but you could still improve your coloring.

About the writing. There's the grammar problems that others have already pointed out. You said you already have someone looking at that, though, so that's good! I'm only bringing it up to say that I might have misunderstood some parts because of it. So if my comments don't make sense or if you disagree with them, that could be why.

Something I really like is that you don't overload the reader with information. There are times when James reads about history or one of the characters explains it to him, but those are spaced out enough not to be jarring. Well done! The same goes for things like character backstories and other important revelations. This aspect of pacing is something you're clearly good at!

MINOR SPOILERS

The biggest point of improvement I can offer is that you should think through what your characters would realistically (be able to) do. I do need to stress that there's no need to change what's already there! It's advice going forward, and there's no need to go back and rewrite everything. Some examples:

• James holds his own in a sword fight while only having practiced martial arts in hand to hand (as far as I know). Sure, he loses to Thorin, but the story builds up his eventual duel opponent as if James would easily beat almost every other fighter. The inclusion of the training scene makes this a little better, but I still think having him engage in such high stakes sword combat this early might not have been a good choice.
• At some point, James exercises by doing (I think) hundreds of push ups and pull ups in one go. This is humanly possible, but James wasn't portrayed as a professional athlete before. I always got the impression it was more of a hobby to him. Combined with his skill in sword fighting, it makes him look unreasonably overpowered. And if he does turn out to be a professional athlete, as is implied by him studying PE and martial arts, then it doesn't come up adequately. Professional sports shape your entire life, yet James still eats pizza and only exercises occasionally. You don't have to describe every time he trains, of course not, but it should be more clear that it's a major part of his life. Also, a smaller note, push ups are much easier than pull ups while the scene implies they are equally challenging.
• James somehow knows the surface area of the earth off the top of his head. While this does lead to an amusing scene where he realizes wolves don't measure in kilometers, it's not really believable and could have been handled better. More importantly, giving the surface area of the earth has little practical meaning so there's hardly any reason to mention it here. Having the characters talk about the differences between their worlds is good and interesting, but it should be believable and involve more than a single number. Dylus gives things like the number of continents for his world, but James does nothing like that (not at that moment, at least).

But like I said, these aren't jarring problems that need to be fixed immediately. It just became somewhat of a pattern which you might want to look into for future chapters. 

Another issue I noticed is that some important events seem to be forgotten rather quickly. Dylus doesn't seem to care particularly much that James broke into his home, for example. It's pretty much ignored once their initial fight is over. I can understand if you want a scene where Dylus is the first to meet James and after that introduces him to the others, but this might not have been the best approach for that. Another option is to still have James break in without it resulting in a fight (because the fight kind of was about a misunderstanding in the first place). Another thing is that James' stomach wound doesn't get as much attention as it might deserve. While he does talk about the moment where he felt like he got stabbed, they all quickly dismiss it by claiming that Dilefor probably would have done something worse by now. While that's a reasonable expectation, it's contradicted by James' wound because it wouldn't be there for no reason. They don't even consider why this happened to James in particular, or why it happened so soon after he got here. I think it would make more sense if it's such a serious subject that they just don't want to talk about it. The way it's written now almost trivializes it.

This again comes down to thinking about what your characters would realistically do. It's great that you build up Dilefor's threat level like this, but you can't forget that the characters' reaction to his possible return can make it much more impactful. I'm not sure how seriously they take him at this point. But like I said, there's no need to go back and change this. Just make sure you keep issues like this in mind for future builds.

I played this game a while ago and remember really enjoying it! I found it very easy to get through and it really keeps you interested by feeding you just enough information at the right times. I always felt like I understood what was going on without the story being predictable.

If I had to give a (minor and specific) point of improvement, it would be the following:

SPOILERS

The twisted ending shows Aspen and Crowe attracting more visitors so that Crowe can keep doing what he's been doing. I have no problems with this turn of events and it fits the choices that lead to it well enough, but I would have liked some more buildup to this moment regardless. It's not that I don't find Aspen's cooperation believable, just that I would have liked to see more of  a transition. Perhaps a scene before the time skip, where Aspen and Crowe argue about whether there really is no other option. The way it stands now, Aspen's final development is not really shown and that's a shame because this was always done well in earlier parts of the story.

Other than that, really well done!

Just finished the newest build and I'm loving it so far! I'll definitely read more once it updates. 

Do you have a sequel or anything planned? Kind of hard to believe we're already halfway through, and it feels like there's a lot more coming (but maybe that's just me).

It's a minor nitpick, but the skip button seems to lag the game a lot. Maybe that's because of the many transitions and character movements (which are good, I'm not complaining about those!) or because of the size of the image files. Then again, you probably can't do much about it and it's not a big deal for linear games anyway. I thought I'd point it out in case someone hasn't yet.