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I didn't say any of that to be insulting. I paid attention to the first couple happy scenes, but it was all the "cursed imagery" that I didn't care for, thus why I skipped the latter ones. I realize they are vital to the lore of the world you are building, but honestly, your characters are what kept me engaged in the game, not the story. Also, sorry, after rereading my original post, I don't think I made it clear that my major complaint about the Happy Scenes wasn't simply that they are vital to progression, but the fact that they can be difficult to find/trigger. I wouldn't mind them being vital to progression, if I didn't have to look up a guide, or enter a cheat repeatedly to get it the event to trigger. I agree that I could've worded my complaint a bit better than "Less Cancer", but they were the most frustrating part of the experience.

I don't want your game to be HHG, and saying, "Your entire post was essentially asking me to make HHG" is a pretty extreme exaggeration. I didn't even play HHG until after playing Lessons in Love--I decided to play it purely because of the recommendation for it on this page. It's not like the things I suggested are exclusive to HHG, but I knew that you knew of HHG, so obviously I'm going to refer to it when making suggestions.Those suggestions weren't about me wanting a different game from what you're making. I just wanted the game to be a bit more player-friendly.

Lastly, in reference to your "Side-note", I don't think that's a bad thing, as I said, I was mainly engaged because of the characters. I think the events with characters just interacting are really good. 

I had a really good time playing this, but there are quite a few things that I can think of that would have made the experience significantly more pleasurable. Also, I'm not sure if you are the person that created HHG, are a friend of the creator, or are just a fan, but a few of my suggestions can be taken care of by doing something similar to how HHG functions.

A Town Map - It would be great if we could have a map to navigate the city, and it would be nice if the map would show which girls were at which locales, like in HHG

Better Progress Tracker - It would be nice to receive hints for the next event like you do in HHG. I can't imagine that I'm the only one that gets annoyed flipping back and forth between playing and looking stuff up in a guide because I find myself stuck.

Less Pointless Options - I'm the kind of player that saves so they can pick every different option to see the different outcome of each. Which can be annoying, when you are given options that either A. all turn out the same or B. I pick only to be told, "Oh, she's a nice girl, you can't say that to her". If I only have 1 option, but you want to make me click it, then just give me 1 option and make me click it to progress.

Less Cancer - Look, the "Happy Scenes" are unique and interesting, and well... cancer. Honestly, I skipped like all of them not because I found them "disturbing", but because they were obnoxious. I could understand if they were hidden extra little things in the background, but the fact that you actually need to find them to progress is frustrating. Most of these scenes are triggered in an unorthodox fashion (like having to decide to leave a locale just after arriving for no reason) and some of them like "Turn off the Lights" I had trouble getting to trigger (I had to reset Ami twice just to get it to work). Sorry if I'm ranting, but most of my frustration from playing came from dealing with these scenes.

Girls - Let me start by saying, up until this point I've basically just said "I want this, I don't want this," and I'm sorry for that, because this is a really good game, and the girls is where Lessons in Love really shines. First off, I think the progression in the relationships between the player and the girls is excellent (I have a minor complaint, but i'll get to that). I don't think there is a single girl that I actually dislike, and most of the time I'm arguing over which one is my favorite. My only complaint is the fact that while this is an "adult game" only about half of the girls currently have any sexual content. I'm assuming that eventually they will all have some sexual content, but its kinda weird to have had around 15-20 events with a girl and nothing sexual, whereas some girls are sexual within their first couple events. 

Ultimately, I really enjoyed your game, and I'm excited to see how it progresses in the future. 

PS. After much debate, I think Molly is best girl. It would be great it we could have an event where she tries to disguise herself to go buy HHG from the porn shop. I hope there are more group scenes in the future too, personally, I'm partial too Sara + Sana and Makoto + Maki. However, based on the spin the bottle scene, Molly + Rin and Ayane + Ami could be really good too.

Visual Novels are one of those weird forms of media that find themselves sitting between two other forms of media, those being picture books and video games. As a result, all of them tend to lean toward either being more like a game or being more like a picture book, and My New Family is a great example of the latter. There is basically no gameplay, you make a few decisions along the way, but they all ultimately boil down to whether or not you want sex scenes with a character or not, and there's no other "gameplay". I'm not saying this is a bad thing, some people might prefer it, but its definitely not for me, I prefer something more interactive. Regardless, even if its not my cup of tea, I'd say the overall quality of this VN is pretty good.

PS.  Maddie was best girl