Hey there! I just wanna say that I haven't been this invested in a game in a long time. The artwork is so encapsulating, which is what made me give the topic a read in the first place, the color scheme is so light and relaxing in a way! Plus, I will always have a soft spot for games occurring in winter and/or fall.
Secondly, I'm sorry to hear about the team disbanding, that must've been a hard decision to all come to. Regardless though I know you'll be able to finish this, you've been at work for it so long to give up now! While I usually enjoy games solely by the GxG route, the boys actually seem to have a bit of depth here. Before I discuss that, I wanna talk about the MC and how much you've frickin' nailed her. From just this topic alone I can tell that this will be quite the ride, and whilst the profile description are a bit vague, Addie still has stolen my heart (and Nari, but I'll get to that in a minute).
Peter. Peter I can tell is going to be my best friend, because dear god who does not love PANDA ANTS. This game ridicules itself lightheartedly while still managing to keep itself to a level of depth that can people enjoy, but still laugh at. Which personally I believe is a very difficult thing to balance, so kudos to you dev! If I wanna be the more tell the truth here, God can I relate to Timothy, I am pretty cynical and jaded but I guess that comes with age (pretty rude at times as well, but I'll act like I'm not
). Emmanuel seems like a bit of a mystery, which I can appreciate. He seems to be held high in everyone's regard, yet has acceptable standards rather not being open-minded to new people/things. Mm, I didn't really elaborate on Peter.. He seems to be an interesting character with a lot on his mind, as you said 'he daydreams a lot', or maybe he doesn't like the place he's living in? Not too sure, but he definitely would be someone I just wanna hug the hell out of. It looks like we'll be seeing a lot of him since he is Addie's childhood friend after all, and I think I can accept that happily, I like the guy! And finally Chanda. While other people may like character with crushes predetermined for the MC, I'm not as big of a fan. I feel like it doesn't give me any time to really get to know that person, without them having the idea of wanting to be in a relationship with the MC. It's a bit difficult to vouch for him this way, but his personality otherwise seems quite nice, always smiling, a very helpful person. I'm not saying I don't like him (especially the artwork, because all of it thus far is fUckin' beautiful), I'm just saying I think I'll need to see him before I really go into detail about him.
God that was a mouthful. Here I'll be discussing the artwork in a bit more criticizing light, and Nari a little bit after. As for characters you've really got it down to the point with diversity, and extreme attention to detail with all of the side characters that have actual sprites (good touch by the way!), they look fleshed out and I can get behind it with ease. As more of a realistic point of view Nari and her coworker punk friend are gonna freeze to death somewhere in the game (that would be such a twist, I can just imagine), I realize you're fixing it, but I haven't seen you mention her coworker, I feel bad just leaving the poor girl to fend for herself. As Zelan wrote on the first page, I love that broken glass image so much (as bad as it sounds I stared at my broken phone glass for a good twenty minutes before getting genuinely upset about now having a broken phone
). As for more of a continuity thing, it's a bit hard to tell from the menu image you have posted, but it doesn't really look like Addie has that curvy look to her in the main menu, but if that's the intended image I won't judge. The BG for Addie's room is a favorite for me, it almost resemble my room in a way! Kinda made me giddy, but I digress. And your first CG sneakpeak I am DYING to see, Addie is so adorable in general, I cannot wait to see it! I'm not entirely sure what you were going for with the distress marks on Nari's shirt, but they look cute nonetheless (for future reference, red and black are the usual colors associated with punk rock). Also it makes me kind of sad to see the bar BG change to a little chain of businesses, I personally liked the idea of a little remote bar nearing the edge of the woods, but I understand the reason for the change, advancing the idea of a small town and keeping continuity so you can see most of the buildings from outside the respective window. From what you've posted of the Uni corridor/staircase it seems really bland for a university, no light fixtures, and what looks like carpet to a hardwood floor change going downstairs? It isn't really cost-effective for the small town you're progressing. But this isn't really a problem, I do enjoy there not being much to be seen, it calls for a much more calming atmosphere, which from what I can tell from the color scheme it looks like this game is going for.
YIKES I TALK A LOT. But, don't worry if you're still bothering to read this, I'm almost done! This isn't a complaint about this game solely, but VN's in general. So Addie boasts a personality as an MC, but most VN's let you take control of the MC as soon as those personality traits would be fleshed out. I don't know about this game since no actual writing has been posted for it yet (aside from synopsis), but I really hope the dev does not go that route. although I'd love to see how Addie acts without guidance, but there is a moderation needed to this as you can't have her doing everything because of the genre of game you're developing in, so that's on the dev to balance, I wish you luck on that
. Now then, Nari. While I don't know if you know the game Life is Strange, I can heavily relate Nari to Chloe from said game, which is not a bad thing, because I fucking LOVE Chloe. I'm into a lot of punk myself, so I respect her for that, and she's protective of the MC (I wanna hug coughkisscough her already). It's a little bit of a repeated gimmick, but not repeated enough to be reformed into a different character by you. I think that's really it for the moment.. Well dev, if you made it through this, respect to you for the fortitude, and have a wonderful day!