Darling Duality

Well, I won’t stop you :D Though both at the same time would be difficult since they’re technically the same entity >.< We could always find someone to do a multiverse merger though x3

:o Is that wedding bells I hear? x3

Oh, that's so cool that you thought the thumbnail was interesting! I never know whether I've done a good job of making those look attractive enough, haha, and DD's one is one that I've always felt needs improving x3 I'm glad you had fun with what's there so far anyhow :3 Thanks so much for checking it out!

I still need to tweak a lot of stuff to do with the UI to be fair. I think there's a way to make the trigger warnings go faster, but I can't remember what it is since it's been quite a while since I put all that together x3 There's a key that speeds it up somewhere though, haha.  As for colours and fonts, with any luck, it will make more sense and look more suitable once more of the game is available :3 Because the genre of the full game is kinda more like fantasy/sci-fi/psychological horror I guess. There's gonna be some clashing of ancient stuff with technological stuff. The Winter Wish part was actually specific to the game jam this project was originally submitted to (the Winter VN jam + the Secret Santa jam) and actually doesn't have a whole lot of relevance to the full game that I'm planning (aside from it being the title of the game that Castor/ia is from, of course) because Castor/ia is just one character in part of a bigger project where you'll be able to choose other character routes too :3

Sadly, there aren't likely to be any updates soon for a whole bunch of different reasons that I've mentioned over these past few months in posts and comments, but I'll get there one day, haha. If only there were more time in the world x3

That's so nice to hear :3 I'm really glad it comes across that way and that you had fun with it so far!

I'm not 100% sure what's actually going to happen when the full game is eventually available cos it's gonna be quite some time from now, and it's possible it might not even be a commercial release in the end because it really depends on what my personal situation is like at the time. But anyone who gets it as part of the queer games bundle, or any other bundle absolutely won't have to repurchase it :3

And in the event that the full game release winds up being free, I'll probably still have something like an exclusive route/character for anyone who supported the game's development either through something like this bundle, as a donation to the project here on itch, or by supporting over on ko-fi or patreon! ^-^

I'm glad you think so :3 The original jam version was pretty rushed since I only had 1 month to make it from scratch x3 which is why I went back and polished a lot of it much later on with improving the UI and stuff while adding some small additions and tweaks to the existing content.

Honestly, it's still beyond surprising for me too that the project has received so much love! I think I likely owe much of that to Manly for shining a light on it in the first place :3 Because, before that video, it didn't really have much in the way of views or downloads. As with all of my games, people probably wouldn't know any of them exist if not for word of mouth because I find social media super stressful, and so it's nigh impossible for me to actually promote the stuff I make >.< The strange thing is though, itch.io's analytics show that many of the people who play and enjoy DD don't go on to check out my other stuff for some reason, which has always baffled me, especially considering that I personally reckon both Limbo Line and Bitter/Sweet are better than DD is x3 Heck, Dawn of the Damned is related to DD with it showing the backstory of some of the characters yet to be added, but that has practically no downloads in comparison even though I posted that they're linked, haha.

Actually, I hate to say it, but I'm kind of drowning in suggestions and feedback at this point xD That's not to say I'm not happy to listen to more because I always am :3 Admittedly, I do have some concerns though when it comes to that sort of thing, but you'll have to bear with me as I clumsily try to explain myself on that front, haha. I can be extremely rambly, so I can only apologise for that T_T A lot of it probably won't even apply to you or what you want to suggest, but it's stuff I feel like I need to get off of my chest in general and may copy to create a post at some point that acts as a sort of explanation I can potentially point to in the future as a way to respond faster rather than covering stuff I've already been over in the past.

The TLDR version would be something like, I don't mind suggestions at all, but whether or not I can take them on board often depends on what aspect of things they're related to.

Actually implementing stuff that's suggested to me is often impractical due to a mixture of differing reasons, such as my skillset not being up to it, clashes with what I already have written or planned but that isn't currently in the demo, or lack of funds. Or more simply, I had already planned to do something similar to a suggestion anyways. There may not be much playable content yet, but there's a fair amount of writing already complete, and I know where I want to go with the overall story, as well as with several character routes.

The proper explanation is as follows.

Sooo, the biggest problem that I have with suggestions is that a lot of stuff is repeated because it's difficult for anyone to locate or find out what's already been suggested and discussed previously due to some of it being long buried in the comments on the game page, and some of it being through private conversations over email or Discord >.<

Now, I could attempt to solve that issue by creating some sort of list that groups everything together in one place and putting a link to that on the game page, BUT, I've found that more often than not, the information on the game page isn't always read before posts are made or messages sent, and that's understandable because there's already a lot of information there as it is and I can't imagine people want to go trudging through it all. But the fact remains that making a list would more than likely wind up being a waste of time, and I'd still end up repeating myself over and over trying to respond to everything x3

And the second biggest thing kinda ties in with the first, and that's that a lot of the suggestions I've received so far are things I was planning to include anyways, but haven't had a chance to yet x3 or things that I just physically wouldn't be able to because my skillset wouldn't allow for it.

But there's more >.<

One big part of the problem is that I don't think everyone who's interested in the project understands that Castor/ia is just one character in the game out of (hopefully) a cast of other characters. This isn't Castor/ia's story alone. It's just that, as I mentioned earlier, the project was originally started for a game jam with a 1-month time limit, and so I was conscious of that and tried to create something that was a complete story in itself, but that I could also continue to work on at some point and expand.

That's why in the updated demo, I added a tiiiny bit more to where the original demo left off, to make it clear that the 'endings' of the original jam version of the game, weren't actually proper endings, more like the end of the first part of one character's route, and would continue past that point, branching off in different directions. And I also left a lot of dead ends in there like mentioning the AI and Cana (which I realise now can be quite frustrating to the player >.<) to show that there is more going on than just Castor/ia's route. In reality, my plans for the game include a fair few character routes, and all those choices in the beginning that currently don't lead anywhere in the demo are just some of the choices that will start you off on other routes for characters that haven't been introduced yet.

Because I haven't revealed much about the lore of the world the game is set in (and I can't really do so without a bunch of spoilers) it means that a lot of suggestions and feedback are immediately moot just on the basis that the people giving the suggestions don't have all the same information that I do >.< For example, a lot of people have said that X or Y doesn't make sense in the context of Castor/ia's story, or that X or Y doesn't appear to have relevance to Castor/ia's story. And these are often things that I've already accounted for in my completed writing or notes, but that aren't part of the game yet. So I find myself continuously explaining to people that X or Y will make sense eventually x3

The full story is nowhere near fully written, but the next segment of it continuing Castor/ia's story and beginning Cana's is, and a few trusted friends and acquaintances have looked over the script and provided their honest thoughts and feedback on it, which has been immensely helpful :3 I also post certain things to Patreon and Ko-Fi for supporters to vote on when anything like that comes up in development and I'm struggling to make a decision by myself, but they're mainly aesthetic decisions, such as the hairstyle of female Cana's sprite.

And even more... (sorry T_T)

The attention the project received after Manly's video has been a double-edged sword. On one hand, the positivity and overall support has been incredible, and I can't thank everyone enough for playing through what little there is of the game so far, taking the time to type up kind comments, and even donating towards the project's development :3 But at the same time, the sheer level of expectation that has arisen for the project as a result has also been the source of quite a bit of stress. Sometimes to the point that I almost wish I never made it in the first place >.<

Most of the negativity is confined to my dev inbox, so while it mainly looks like sunshine and rainbows over here on the game page, that isn't the whole truth x3 But it's not people hating on the project for various reasons that gets me down because I know by now to ignore hateful comments that aren't in any way constructive. My biggest demotivator is a small number of players who actually like the project, but who take it upon themselves to make demands of me or pressure me to work faster on it. I've had people demand that X or Y is in the game because they want it to be and they donated $5 towards the project, so somehow, by their logic, that means I should have to do as they say >.<

Sometimes it feels like people forget that I'm just one person working on making video games as a hobby >.< No one's paying me to do this.

Of course, I'm beyond grateful for any donations that I receive towards development because, without that support, I wouldn't be able to include things like voice acting and CGs (and the project would be worse in general),  but it doesn't change the fact that I'm human, not a machine, and I have a life outside of game dev.

Donations make it possible for me to get a little closer to realising the vision I have for the project, but it's not a form of income. I make games because I enjoy doing it. As nice as it would be to be able to earn a living doing something I love, at this point, I don't feel as though it's something that will ever happen for me for a number of reasons I've discussed at length in older posts, and I've made peace with that. If it reaches a point where I'm no longer in love with doing it, then I'll take a big break from it or just stop completely >.< I sincerely hope that never happens because it's really not a hobby that I want to ever fall out of love with, but some days when things get too much, it does feel like leaving it all behind would be the easier option.

So yeah, expectation is a funny thing. When people are patient and supportive, it's something that can motivate and inspire meto keep going and work even harder :3 but on the flip side, when it comes at me in a more aggressive, negative form, it can be absolutely crippling. I find it far easier to work on jam games because there is little to no expectation.

Heck, I didn't think I'd ever have the opportunity to even expand on this project outside of the jam I originally made it for even though I really wanted to, just because of stuff like the cost of voice acting. Those who voiced what's currently there did so out of the kindness of their hearts because it was for a jam. I knew I'd never be able to afford to have them back in a million years because I don't have much money myself. And since getting voice acting into my projects is a massive motivator for me, I had accepted that I'd likely have to leave things as they were at the end of the jam because I didn't really want to work on a full-length version of the game if it wasn't going to have voice acting.

Of course, that changed once the project got more attention and support, but at the same time, has also created an entirely new dilemma in that the period of time between the game being released for the jam and the game actually becoming somewhat known (and gaining support as a result) was pretty big, meaning that even after getting some funding together, the voice actors involved in the project at the time have moved onto other things and aren't necessarily interested in reprising their roles. That's something which is looking more and more likely, though not certain. But whatever happens, it's something that's out of my control >.< That's just one of the many problems you can end up with if you start something but don't have the funds to finish it the way you'd like.

I was joking with a friend the other day that game dev is an odd hobby to have because sometimes you end up with strangers essentially shouting over your shoulder that you should work faster, or that they don't like X part and it should be more like Y. Or that they think X should be included here and Y there. But that wouldn't happen with a lot of other hobbies x3 Like with my mum's cross stitching, or my dad's bird watching, haha. Again though, there's plenty of positive stuff too :3 It's just sometimes the negative voices are the ones that shout louder >.< and that's when it's not fun anymore.

Anyways, I'm gonna wind up going completely off track in a minute, so I will try to curtail this essay x3

As I said, I don't mind listening to suggestions at all, I just can't make any promises because, at the end of the day, this is a hobby. I didn't set out to make these games for anyone in particular, and I'd never be as foolish enough to try and please people either because that would just be a road that leads to misery and disaster since you can't please everyone.

So all I can do is keep trying to do the things I enjoy, and if other people end up coming across the stuff I release into the wild and they enjoy it too, then that's the best bonus to a hobby that I could ever hope for :3

Also, I realise that trying to read long posts like this with the font on this page is kinda difficult >.< I'm gonna try and change the font to something more readable when I get a chance, but I have to go now and make dinner, so that's a job I need to remember to do later x3

Unfortunately, I can't really give much of a solid date for anything because I've had a couple of pretty big setbacks in the last 6 months that have meant not really getting to work on anything at all other than the thing my friend and I managed to submit to Yandere Jam earlier this year. Aside from that, I've essentially made 0 progress with my other projects >.< Aaaand, I have less time nowadays in general to work on things for a number of reasons.

But yeah, after I released the most recent update in November last year, all I've been able to do since then is commission LPB for the first lot of CGs, which she's currently working on :3 I personally haven't been able to touch the project though.

In December, I caught some kind of nasty superbug that knocked me for six until mid-January. So I spent all of Christmas ill. When I was finally well enough to go out again in mid-January, I had to meet some friends and family that I hadn't been able to see over Christmas. I just about managed to get back on my PC during February in time to team up with LPB and make Bitter/Sweet for Yandere Jam 2023. Once that ended at the end of Feb, I began trying to catch up on my inbox, but in the first week of March, a dude on an e-scooter crashed into me while I was walking to an appointment in town, the result was me winding up with a broken arm (and my dominant one at that >.<) So my arm had to have a cast put on and I was told to rest and wait for it to heal. In that time, I couldn't really use it to do anything, so I was completely off of my PC for almost 2 months waiting for it to heal up. I couldn't even hold my phone or a controller or anything properly in order to try and stay on top of my inbox or play any games.

I finally got to take the cast off at the end of April and start doing more serious physio, and once back on my PC and able to type again, I began trying to catch up on my replies. I pretty much spent the entirety of May responding to messages and stuff from a mixture of friends and people who had recently discovered my games and gotten in touch. Now we're into June and I still haven't managed to finish typing up replies to everyone >.<

I'm almost caught up with itch aside from a few older comments which I need to go hunting for because I can no longer easily access them from notifications. But I'm still waaaay behind on emails and discord dms, same goes for anything on tumblr. I have some longer messages from all the way back in December that I still haven't managed to get a response typed up to yet because they're part of long conversations where I need a couple of days to actually get the entire thing finished.

Honestly, I'm not even sure how to cope at this point x3 I was already struggling before my arm got broken. Being forced to spend so much time away from my PC has just meant that things have piled up even more. But even without that, I'm frequently overwhelmed by everything I'm trying to juggle, haha.

I don't want to start ignoring comments and messages and stuff because it would just feel so wrong. I've always thought that if a person has taken the time to check my stuff out and then cared enough to sit and type out a message of some sort, then the least I can do as thanks is reply. I'd never want anyone to contact me and then not hear back ever >.< I want to be able to show that I appreciate the support.

The dilemma is that, the longer I spend typing up replies, the less time I have to work on the projects themselves. And since I'm just one person, I can't do both at once x3 I dunno, maybe people wouldn't really care all that much if they never got a response from me? But even if it didn't bother them, it would bother me >.< I've always tried my best to reply to everything.

And even if I were to start ignoring all comments and messages related to my projects, that still wouldn't change the fact that I struggle to keep on top of replying to my friends over discord and email x3 It's become a running joke now with some of my friends that being friends with me is more like having a penpal because they have to wait a few months to hear back from me >.< Which is okay as long as they're cool with that, but I don't want it to get to the point that I wind up losing some of the friendships I have because I can't manage to stay in contact consistently :(

Aaaaand, then we come to the fact that these days, I sometimes don't get much more than an hour or two on my PC, which isn't really enough to achieve much >.< I really need entire days to myself without any interruptions to be able to get decent progress made. Days like that are rarer now though. I've essentially become my brother's carer even though I can barely look after myself x3 He has a lot of physical and mental health problems, so he has quite a lot of appointments and such to go to. My dad used to be able to afford to either take a morning off to take him or finish work early to, but he can't afford to do that nowadays with the cost of everything skyrocketing. He needs to work every hour that he can >.< So on top of the usual household chores that I do, I now have to take my brother to all of his appointments as well, which can take up the entire day sometimes because I don't have my own car (can't afford one), my brother refuses to use public transport, and so we have to walk to them, and they're all over an hour's walk away x3

Sooo, yeah, I'm in a state where I'm just constantly knackered pretty much, haha. And I've learned to stop setting myself schedules and timed goals because life keeps throwing so many things at me lately that it just got increasingly frustrating to repeatedly fail at all the targets I set myself. It's easier to just try and do what I can - when I can, and that way I beat myself up a little less for not achieving as much as I would like x3

At the end of 2022, my plan for 2023 was to release an episode of Masked Marionette every couple of months, with the first being at the end of Feb/start of March, then the next at the end of April, and then a few bigger gaps. Alongside that, I hoped to participate in Yandere Jam, O2A2 Jam, and Spooktober VN Jam. And I wanted to get at least 1, but hopefully 2 updates out for DD, along with hopefully some coding progress on CiQ.

Well, all that I've managed to do so far this year is participate in Yandere Jam >.< I don't know if I'll have the time to dedicate to the other two. I really, really hope so. I haven't got a single episode of Masked Marionette out though. And 0 progress on both DD and CiQ.

Everything is on hold for June because I'm participating in 30 Days Wild again since nature is extremely important to me and the UK is going down the shitter with our government not giving a crap about the environment or the wildlife that lives in it >.<

So it'll be July before I get back into proper project work again. But even then, I'll probably only get a few hours a day that I can work on anything rather than the 7+ hours a day that I used to have. And the summer is always my least productive time of year because the heat and bright sunlight never fail to make me ill each year.

At this rate, I don't anticipate me managing to get an update out for DD this year because while everything I wanted to include in it is already written, only a tiny fraction of it is actually coded so far, and I've still got the voice acting problems to sort out. Maybe a miracle of some sort will happen and I'll manage to make some good progress with it, but I really don't want to make any promises or set myself targets because I will more than likely keep running into setbacks that will hurt if I'm telling myself I have to get X done by X date.

Right now, most of my days look like this:
Get up, eat breakfast.
Do physio and other exercise for an hour (I put on a full stone in weight while I was recovering from my broken arm, so I need to do an hour's exercise minimum now to try and lose it again, as I have hypothyroidism and put weight on crazy fast when I can't workout >.<)
Do household chores (sometimes this might mean going out to get parts of our food shopping for the week, and since it means going to multiple shops by foot, sometimes it takes 3 hours+ >.<)
Have lunch (at like 3pm >.<”)
Finish any other chores that need doing or appointments my brother needs to go to
PC time – get replies typed up for a couple of hours
Cook dinner for my family
Eat dinner and watch an episode or two of something
Make any preparations for the next day that need doing, try and get a few more replies done if I have the energy
Collapse into bed

That's not what my days used to look like xD I used to:
Get up, eat, go on my PC to do a couple of hours of work on projects
Pause for exercise (but only like 30 mins workout cos I didn't need to lose weight)
Do any chores that needed doing (generally less time spent on that cos there was less to do as my dad and I shared them)
Go on my PC again for around 3-5 hours to do a mixture of project work + replies.
Cook dinner (sometimes my dad did that too, which would mean more time to work on stuff for me, nowadays, I cook every night cos my dad is too exhausted from work)
Eat dinner and watch an ep of something
Go back on my PC for another hour or so.
My dad would head to bed, then I would go back on my PC again until like 3-5am working on stuff again.

But now I'm too tired from having been running around all day doing chores or taking my brother to appointments, so come 11pm, I'm also exhausted and go to bed at the same time my dad does >.< And, of course, with my depression and stuff, sometimes I just don't feel capable of doing anything at all in a day, even feeding myself.

Heck, before I moved back in with my family after the pandemic, I was living with my friend, and I used to just get up at 7am every day when his alarm went off, shower, and start working on stuff, didn't even exercise or break for lunch. Cooked dinner, ate it, went straight back to working on stuff until like 3am. Then my friend and I would just kinda blitz the housework on a weekend after like a month or more of not having done any xD

That would not fly with my dad, haha. I keep on top of it at home for his sanity. And I know that if I left it, rather than asking me to do it, he would just seeth silently inside and do it himself, and then I'd feel awful because he doesn't deserve that when he's up at 5am every day, breaking his back at work, and then too tired to do anything when he finally gets home at 6pm, all to keep a roof over our heads because both of his children are too mentally crippled to actually get a normal job and help support the household >.<

My dad is extremely sweet and doesn't mind me being slower on housework and stuff when I want to work on a jam since he understands they generally involve quite a tight deadline, but once a jam is over, things are back to normal again, and I generally have a lot of catching up to do as well since I will have neglected so much while the jam was running.

I still don't even give myself more than an hour or two per week to actually play games because I know I can't afford to if I wanna get anywhere with my replies and with my project progress x3 and so my backlog of stuff I really hope to play someday continues to grow, haha.

I realise that was a waaaaay longer answer than was needed x3 I just can't be concise >.< and this is one of the reasons why I get behind on my messages and stuff xD Cos if someone types me 1 sentence, 99.9% of the time I will type back a paragraph or more, haha. So you can imagine what happens if people type me a few paragraphs... I then type back with an essay x3 I'm gonna blame that on my autism cos I dunno what else would cause me to be incapable of stopping rambling and oversharing on stuff >.<

Anyways, I also realise it's not a very helpful answer either! More just one giant explanation of why things haven't been going particularly smoothly. But that's all I've got. It is what it is. I just have to keep going and hope that I eventually get somewhere.

Glad you like the look of what's there so far :3 I only wish I could work on it all faster x3 feel like such a snail at this point! >.<

Not quite sure when the Dawn of the Damned characters will make it in cos Cana is supposed to be the next one being introduced whenever I can finally get the next update out, haha. And I don't know if I should add the DotD ones in the update after that, or leave them until a few updates later cos there are a couple of characters I'd like to introduce before them really x3 There's just never enough time to get everything done that I want to, haha. 

Hmm, that's strange >.< Do you know which version you originally downloaded? Because if it was from before I updated all the files with the most recent demo version late last year, that might be the cause! Cos I had to rename stuff and delete other stuff that was no longer relevant.

The latest version is the one called 'Darling Duality - Demo - (Windows/Mac/Linux)' and because so much was changed in that version, it means save files from the older versions can't be carried over cos they would just break the game >.<

Yeah, there is a lot of positivity here, which is wonderful ^-^ and I can still hardly believe it + really appreciate it :3 But what you don't see is the negative stuff I get sent privately to my email, haha. The positives still massively outweigh the negatives, thankfully, but it doesn't stop the nasty stuff from really getting to me and massively demotivating me when I read it >.<

Manly playing the game was both a blessing and a curse, haha. A blessing because, otherwise, hardly anyone would even know the game exists still, and the level of support has been incredible :3 But a curse because it has also attracted a number of people who, while they profess to love the game, have proceeded to make demands of me in private, saying that if I don't include X or Y content for Castor/ia, or if I don't change X or Y that they don't like about the project, then they will trash it and everything else that I release o.O Of course, there are also just haters too >.< And worse than that, but I won't go into more detail because my arm is still broken at the moment, and it's still quite difficult to type with just one hand for now x3 So I can only apologise for that! If I could use both hands, I'd type out a much more in-depth response!

Firstly, regarding art aspects, there's not much I can do to change most things because I'm not an artist  :( (that's why there are no CGs in the game, though I am commissioning my artist friend LPB to create some for future updates :3) All the sprites are assets that are edited by me in order to avoid using them with their default appearances. I spent many hours in GIMP recolouring them and adding additional facial expressions that they didn't come with by default. All the backgrounds are assets. And yup, you probably guessed it by now, the switch-like console is also just an edited asset x3 The UI is the only part of the art that's mostly made by me. Some of it is a combo of edited assets + my own stuff, but most of it is stuff I managed to put together in GIMP. As I said though, I'm no artist. I can't draw to save my life >.<

All of that amounts to giving the feeling of an amateur made game because the game is technically made by an amateur, haha. I have no formal experience or training in any aspect of game dev x3 It started as a hobby, out of wanting to make a game that contained the stuff I wanted to see because, at

the time, I played a lot of VNs and none quite had what I was hoping for in a game - an English-voiced male yandere character, where the yandere romance was the only romance, but there was still a proper story behind it all (and so, I made my first game around that, Solipsism Reigns :3) I may have gained a lot of experience over the years since I started making games, even completely switching engines at one point. Heck, I even managed to teach myself how to start making music so I could include some original tracks in my games, but still, I am not an artist, nor a writer, nor a coder, or composer. Everything I've ever done is self-taught. And making games is a hobby that helps me to cope with my depression and other mental health problems x3 As my friend once put it upon seeing my first game finished, - 'I don't know how you did it when you can't even draw, but boy, you sure are resourceful!' haha.

I'm also unemployed, so when it comes to game dev, all I have to put towards projects is the stuff that people kindly donate :3 Which means that, for example, I can't really afford to hire an artist to draw a better-looking version of the device that MC plays Winter Wish on. Cos any funding needs to go towards CGs or voice acting.

There is a key you can press to force skip the title screen animations, but I can't remember which one it is, and I can't check since I can't go on my PC atm with my broken arm x3 I know what you mean though about needing a more efficient way to quit and stuff cos it is quite slow. 

Won't say too much regarding bipolar MC cos the jury is still out on whether I am bipolar myself or not xD My therapist once suspected I might be, but now she thinks perhaps I might have ADHD as well as my autism, and that the two together at war sort of mimic bipolar traits. Anyways, I do get what you're saying, but the game is supposed to be all black and white with little to no grey area for both MC and the love interests. The player can indeed make MC less believable and more unstable by ping-ponging between cruel/kind options and acting polar opposites, but everything will have consequences in the end, and there is a point to being able to do it all, it just doesn't really show yet in the demo like a lot of things cos the story isn't far enough in for a lot of stuff to make much sense >.< Even if a player goes full kind/sweet mode though, it still won't result in a typically healthy relationship with any of the characters. It will be less crazy than the alternative options, and probably considered the 'good' route or ending, but yeah, it still won't be healthy, because the whole concept is about how black and white thinking and extremes aren't healthy x3

Castor and Castoria might be the only available love interests atm, but I was planning to have many more routes than that (2 of which are already partially written, just not in the demo yet x3) For example, Cana, the childhood friend mentioned in the demo, is a love interest with their own route, and depending on the player's choices, Castor/ia and Cana could well wind up encountering each other, where there are, of course, consequences :3

The stuff to do with Kiaria Corp and the AI I really can't say much about without walking right into spoiler territory. All I can say is that it has to be at the beginning for things to work the way I eventually want them to. It might seem nonsensical now, but there's a reason for it x3 Trust me, once it's actually implemented, it will make sense. The problem is that almost everyone thinks the game is mainly Castor/ia's story, and that the story begins with MC and Castor/ia, but that's only because that's all that's playable for now. Because that's all I could finish in time for the game jam it was originally submitted to. In reality, Castor/ia is actually just an option in a much bigger game that I had planned to make. The story doesn't have to start with Castor/ia. Heck, once the full game is eventually finished years from now, a player could play without even encountering Castor/ia if they chose to do so. I think I might have briefly mentioned it in the past on Patreon/Ko-Fi, but I don't really remember.

I would've left out the AI and Cana branches from the demo to save confusion, but the problem was, I didn't have space to make backup copies of my working copy and the public demo release. In my working copy, the branches that are inaccessible in the demo do actually lead to more content, but it's unfinished. Because I don't have space for backups, it was easier for me to leave those branches in and block them off than to completely remove them and then have to add them in again >.< It's stupid, I know. But my PC is old, my hard drive is full, and it was pretty much my only option :(

And yeah, I already touched on Cana, the childhood friend, but to give a solid answer to all those questions, basically, everything you asked is already written into the story :3 So all of those things will be answered. It's just I haven't been able to actually make any of it playable yet (part of it is playable in my working copy, but I'm nowhere near finished coding in all of the stuff that's been written already >.<) But yeah, Cana will have their own playable route. Player choices will determine if Cana and Castor/ia discover each other's existence, and if they do, there will be consequences according to the choices previously made.

Hehe, I would say more too if it wasn't for my stupid arm >.< Typing atm is just so slow and awkward. I appreciate you taking the time to write everything that you did though :3 Constructive criticism is always helpful! Often, people will say they don't like X or Y, but offer no suggestions on how to improve, so it's always nice to hear different opinions on stuff with actual suggestions. It's just a shame that there's not much I can do about some of the points that you raised, like the art stuff >.<

And being completely honest, it might actually take 5 years or more for me to properly fully finish the project xD the scope is pretty big, and a lot gets in the way of progress :( My mental health issues mean my productivity comes in spikes. I find it easier to work on multiple projects at once rather than just one. Negative emails, comments, and reviews make me want to quit the project because, at the end of the day, I'm making it for fun, and if it stops being fun, I have no willpower to keep going >.< Funding is difficult because voice acting is expensive, and I can't even run a Kickstarter or anything because of my personal situation. I live in a country where because of my mental health issues, I have to accept government aid in order to survive and be able to afford food and stuff, but while accepting that help, I'm not allowed to try to make any sort of income, even if it's just a tiny amount, it's not allowed, and if I did, I would immediately lose my aid, then I wouldn't be able to afford food >.< Aaaand, to top it off, one of the voice actors is unlikely to reprise their role even with payment offered. Soooo, yeah, there are a lot of barriers that make development quote slow :( haha. And that's not even including the fact that my arm got broken in several places a few weeks ago xD so I haven't been able to work on anything since then, and I'm stuck like that until it's healed. 

I'm glad you like what little is there so far in the demo though and that you can see potential in the project :3 With any luck, it will be finished eventually! Just gotta keep taking it in baby steps I guess.

Glad you were enjoying it :3 Unfortunately, development is pretty slow for a whole bunch of different reasons >.< and I can't even work on anything atm cos my dominant arm is broken, haha. But hoping to get an update out later in the year still :3

Aww, thank you so much for checking it out and I'm so glad you had fun with what's there so far :3

That would be epic if you do end up making any fanarts :D Feel free to post them here in the comments if you do, or you're welcome to tweet them to me or tag me in on Tumblr, and I'll do my best to repost if you don't mind :3

Hopefully, you've managed to get it to open by now, but if not, from what I've been told, the easiest way to get it to work is to download the itch.io app, and then play all games via app :3 Failing that, with any luck, something on this list of suggestions by other mac users will help!