This game is really interesting in many ways both good and bad.
When I wanted to install the game, the itch client didn't give me that option at all. I had to download the game manually from the website, but that worked just fine then.
After starting to read, I quickly found out about the language issues that were mentioned in another comment already, so I don't want to say too much about it except that maybe the text was killed by a bad program that ran through it. You just don't mix up 'lower' with 'lover' several times throughout the game, already three times in HP Lira's lecture right at the beginning. The word 'surprise' got a good one as well. When something is suddenly supersizing or someone is supersized, then that's definitely suspiscious. I don't believe that all to be man-made mistakes. Just look for 'super' in the text and you should get some actual surprises out of it.
Something more useful to say is that except for Diane's wrong name header throughout the game, there's another case in Honoko's route where Honoko or Lumen suddenly speak as Nene although she's not even there, making the mistake obvious. Shortly after that, Lumen and Honoko get mixed up, that's a bit more confusing, but from what is said it's obvious who is supposed to say it.
But enough about that. Let's get to the good things.
The writing is actually pretty awesome and the routes are planned very well. The story or stories are beautifully written and deliver quite different romances, sometimes relying on the unique magic system, making the worldbuilding stand out even more. This. Is. Great!
Although I'm not sure about everything the story wants me to believe about the world, at this point I'm actually not trying to say that those aspects were poorly written, it's more like I feel I'd have to know more about life in other Astrals to be sure whether or not it could be because of poor worldbuilding. Again, this proves that something was done right here.
If you immerse yourself in this game, you definitely think a lot about different things, this is always a good point for every story and it's definitely a plus that shouldn't be underestimated.
Another plus is the music, I didn't get annoyed after all the hours I spent reading the different routes. That doesn't happen very often in my case.
And then there's the art. I really really miss a gallery in this game!
Although the art really is nothing that special, it's not that bad either. It's still definitely a great deal better than everything I could produce. And the CG's are actually quite interesting. Two of them made me laugh out loud and I really enjoyed that. Furthermore, the rather simple art makes one focus more on what the picture is all about and the CG's definitely serve their purpose.
But there are backgrounds as well. The proportions are off quite often, but the drawn backgrounds are actually really nice to look at. I like them very much. As I said before, I really miss a gallery for the CG's and the background arts.
One other thing to criticize would be that when deciding on a route, other characters obviously have to be a little bit neglected because of the route chosen. But sometimes, the relationship between Lumen and other characters isn't really made clear then. I'm not sure how to go into detail without spoilering too much, so I leave it at that.
This game is definitely one those that I won't forget, it's totally worth it despite the language (and art) issues.
I really hope that this game will be improved someday to make the reading experience better for everyone, so that the story can get the attention it clearly deserves. The potential is clearly there.
A second thing I obviously hope for would be a new story in this awesome setting, maybe in another Astral then. Again, the potential is clearly there.
As I already answered to a different feedback, I honestly have no idea myself how language ended THAT bad, I am probably the one who is most surprised by it. Of course that is no excuse and all I can say regarding this is that I am sorry.
As for CG gallery, this was planned in beginning but it turned out my programing skills weren't enough to make one. Originally I thought I'll learn how to make one latter in development but than development prolonged A LOT longer than expected and some things from original plan had to drop out for the sake of getting the game done, gallery was one of them.
Both things you hope for ware originally part of my plan, I though after release I would do updates for any mistakes found and maybe even make some DLC's for additional routes (like adding Mao's route). Additionally I planed that one day when my art significantly improves, or I have budget to hire artists that I would do something along the lines of a full remaster. I also had a rough idea for my next VN that would take part in a different sector of Astral. That said those ware all plans I had before I actually released this VN and saw that, financially at least, this VN was a huge failure. Now, well I still have a desire to make VNs for a living and as such both a full remaster and another VN in this setting are things I plan to do eventually, just now I need to take a few steps back before I can try myself again at VN making.
That said your feedback encouraged me to consider another option, witch is to do a full editing of text, fixing all mistakes when it comes to language and trying to re-release this game on a bigger platform such as steam. Release on steam was always a part of a plan but after sales here ended up so bad that my earnings wouldn't even cover a 100$ steam release fee I given up on it. Your post made me realize that I did do some things right after all, opposite of what I started to think and made me rethink my decision. Of course if I do that I will also upload an updated/edited version here as well, but I am not promising anything as I still need do some some thinking before I decide if to go thru with this new idea, and even if I do decide to do this it might take a wile.
Again, thank you for your feedback and thank you for playing 17th Astral!
I'm happy that my comment actually did have an effect on how you view certain things. Although you didn't make any promises, that's already good enough.
Regardless of what you end up deciding on, thank you for creating 17th Astral :)
Is there a Mac version for this game? If you made it with Ren'py it should be simple to export a Mac version. I will buy the game if there's a Mac version.
Indeed it is simple to export a mac version, but I don't have a Mac OS so I wouldn't have a way to test it. I could still make a Mac version and upload it and I am willing t do so if you understand and agree with buying an untested version. If you are fine with that please replay and I will have it made.
Alright, I bought this today and started playreading it, and.... uh. Well, I'm ususally into all things Yuri, but there is a major problem with this VN: The language. It's in English, but frankly, it's so bad, it really hurts reading it. Grammar, orthography, all pretty bad.
I'm still going to go ahead and play through at least one route, but as harsh as my critizism may be, please do take it to heart; Get a proofreader who speaks native English the next time around. If you can polish the language, the whole experience will become a great deal better than it is now, believe me!
I mean, parts of the art are pretty bad as well (Characters = mspaint.exe?), but hey, it's acceptable for a cheaper Yuri VN. And those hand-drawn backgrounds even do have a real charm of their own, must've been quite a bit of work.
But the narrative, the monologues and dialogues are the soul of a visual novel - you really should get that part right!
My apologies for being so negative, but I do hope that something good can come of my feedback. I do want to see more quality Yuri VNs after all. ;)
While I don't think any writer/artist likes getting very negative criticism, I do appreciate your honesty.
I am really sorry that you find writing to be terrible, I did make sure to put everything I written true not one but two grammar checking programs and edit it, but I guess it wasn't enough...
I am aware that both my art and writing could use some improvement, and I'll make sure to improve as much as I can before I start my next VN. For this project I didn't have a budget to hire a proofreader, if 17th Astral sells decently enough I'll make sure to do so for my next project.
Thank you for buying it and I hope you still manage to enjoy this VN at least a little bit despite not finding writing acceptable.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean to completely discourage you or anything. I still liked some of the characters and their backstories, which kept me playing, and I think I finished all (!) of the routes after all. So I'm kinda like those people who 100% clear their plate at a restaurant and still complain about the food having been bad. ;)
Still, let me give you just two (of countless) examples when it comes to spelling, and that's Diane. I liked her route, so I found it a bit irritating that her name header - when she is saying something - would suddenly read "Diene" instead of "Diane". That's a bit much, you know?
Or one time Honoko says "I thought you would be more existed for it", when it's about their continuation of magic practice. Clearly, she meant to say something like "I thought you would be more *excited* about it". "exist" as in "to be present in this world" doesn't fit here at all.
See what I mean? And it's literally full of that, you'll get it every few lines. Had to play only for seconds to come up with those two mistakes just now.
However, if you do make another Yuri VN, I'll surely be back on board again, because I wanna see how you'll continue from here on out (and because I simply love Yuri). And I may critize again as well... Not sure if that's encouragement or a threat to you though, haha... ;)
Wow, I... I have no idea how I missed those... I guess I really should make sure to do editing when my head's clear rather than after all nighters.
I'm glad you liked some of it at least, and if you don't mind I would like to get more feedback on those parts as well (Characters, story etc.)
I will definitely be making more VNs in a future, I won't let one failure stop me. True I might take some time to improve my art first and to raise a budget to hire some help for my next project. (And of course, it will be GxG, I absolutely love GxG!)
I just replayed parts of the VN to refresh my memory a bit so I can talk about different routes and characters.
First: !A WARNING! There are some spoilers in this first part of my post.
Second: I want a Mao route. ;) Somehow, for her character (because she is so animal/cat-like), the broken grammar even works in her favor, because it makes her more adorable. Actually, she was the first one I wanted to go for, but sadly, that wasn't possible...
Then, Diane and Honoko. Like most girls from this VN, those two should be discussed together. I liked them, because they had such a firmly intertwined past. That made it easy to imagine the rivalry between the two, which I guess has been going on for quiiite some time. Going for either of them feels a bit like a "childhood friend wins" ending (which I love by the way).
As for our "newcomers" Rena and Ria (sometimes called "Rie"?!), the right word for the two sisters would be "contrast". At first glance, one is warm and kind, the other brutal and cold. Their routes were quite short, but I liked their endings, especially Ria's. I guess I'm a sucker for her type of character, like a Kuudere spiked with a slightly more than healthy dose of jealousy and vengefulness. A character that gives you a strong shell you need to break through to get to the soft core - that's good, some people enjoy this type of person.
And what about our best friends, Iori and Nene? Hmm, to me they were the least interesting, even though Nene was quite fun (what with her teasing our girl and all that).
I guess my favorites would be Diane, Honoko and then on a very close 3rd place, Ria. So yeah, in that order. Although, depending on my mood, I might give that 3rd spot to Rena...
Alright, that covers the girls. Now as for the story... Hm. It didn't sit quite right with me. But for that, I guess I have to say:
!!!MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD!!!
The whole "virus" thing seems strange. Sure, humans are often brutal, but not everything physical is bad, so that's why I call this setup some kind of strange "spiritual elitism". If we take a look at how tremendously brutal both Lumen and Diane were in the past - they basically committed wide-scale mass murder, if not genocide - I can't see them as being any better than the worst regular humans would've been. One scene for instance quite graphically describes how Diane kills a crusader, fantasizing about "torturing him more".
Also, what is that so-called "virus" to begin with? In some parts it feels like the VN is trying to tell us, that "being a human is the virus itself". Because, the few humans shown in the Diane/Honoko route didn't seem infected at all. They seemed like the classic witch hunters we would imagine when thinking about a somewhat more fantastical medieval age, but nothing that seemed fundamentally wrong. Criminals maybe, from the players' point of view, yes. But clearly not more so than the magic wielders who decided to burn them to ash by the thousands (actually: tens of thousands, just to pay for one life that hadn't even been taken at that point!).
The VN goes ways to show us, how hideous and horrible regular human beings are supposed to be in this world, when compared to "pure, spiritual" ones, and that just rubbed me the wrong way, because it appeared to be too extremist for my tastes. This is especially true given the actions that the "more supreme beings" have committed before their ascension to Astral.
In my opinion, such people would probably go to the nine hells and become demons rather than gods. ;)
This went so far, that at some point I felt I should side with the normal humans, against this magic/spiritual supremacy thing, because the magic wielders seemed like the actual threat to life and safety of common people, and they seemed quite hateful too. They didn't even treat humans as intelligent, sane beings but just as things that need to be extinguished...
Astral itself (its system of ascension to godhood, and its division into several parts, the priest caste etc) was kind of well-crafted. I just don't feel right about what happened back on earth and the initial step of ascension based on the information given to me by the VN's storytelling.
Seems weirdly twisted, also the memory erasing thing. If a spiritual world like Astral erases some of my memory permanently, it feels as if it's trying to hide something very important from me. And I don't like that, as I wouldn't wanna lose even my bad memories - because they are a part of me, that shall not be taken from me. And how people just wholeheartedly agreed with the erasure didn't seem credible to me.
So that part of Astral seems a bit fishy in my opinion. If I were there myself, I would'nt want to learn more magic to ascend further, but to dissect and learn about Astral's own inner workings and true purposes first, because it didn't seem all peaches and cream to me. Almost like there are some horrors sleeping below that pretty-looking surface...
Because there was always this feeling... "Something here just isn't right".
Alright, that was a VERY long reply and a major wall of text, mostly full of subjective views and opinions, but I hope this can still help at least a little bit.
Thank you for the replay. It's really nice to get some feedback on my work.
First regarding Mao route, I did consider adding a route for her, but time just didn't allow it. By the time I finished those five routes I was already twice over the time I was originally planing to devote to making this VN (I worked on it for 13 months and had originally planed to make it in 6). I also considered doing something a long the lines of DLC routes for Mao, Nene and a new character later on, but sales don't justify to do that now. Maybe someday in a future if I ever decide to do a full remaster... maybe...
As for the story,
In the world of this VN the more one advances spiritually the more one is intelligent, emotional, reasonable/sane, conscious, pretty much everything, and the opposite is also true, so yea the ones who have accepted a virus have so low of any of those that that they are beyond hope and just something to be extinguished witch is clearly understood by characters and the reason why they treat them as such. In this world there are only two possibilities for a future, advance and reach Godhood or case to exist, and virus embraced ones that have descended to such low levels that they have no chance of ever reaching Godhood and could as well not exist as it's only a matter of time before they do stop existing completely (True they already have so low consciousnesses that they current state could barely even be considered existing/living) and during that time they cannot contribute to anything, just destroy and taint everything they touch . They represent the worst of humanity but not in some subjective moral god or evil way more in an being small, pity, way, as if people who are only alive on the outside but completely and permanently dead inside and whatever they do they do mostly instinctively, making a world a worse place just by being in it. This VN doesn't really work in good and evil format, if anything advancing and becoming more is good doing the opposite is bad, everything else just is. All in Astral aiming to reach Godhood, become creators of worlds, are beyond such concepts of good and evil, black and white.
PS: In Mao's case, broken grammar was intentional, that's just the way she talks. I'm glad you liked it.
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This game is really interesting in many ways both good and bad.
When I wanted to install the game, the itch client didn't give me that option at all. I had to download the game manually from the website, but that worked just fine then.
After starting to read, I quickly found out about the language issues that were mentioned in another comment already, so I don't want to say too much about it except that maybe the text was killed by a bad program that ran through it. You just don't mix up 'lower' with 'lover' several times throughout the game, already three times in HP Lira's lecture right at the beginning. The word 'surprise' got a good one as well. When something is suddenly supersizing or someone is supersized, then that's definitely suspiscious. I don't believe that all to be man-made mistakes. Just look for 'super' in the text and you should get some actual surprises out of it.
Something more useful to say is that except for Diane's wrong name header throughout the game, there's another case in Honoko's route where Honoko or Lumen suddenly speak as Nene although she's not even there, making the mistake obvious. Shortly after that, Lumen and Honoko get mixed up, that's a bit more confusing, but from what is said it's obvious who is supposed to say it.
But enough about that. Let's get to the good things.
The writing is actually pretty awesome and the routes are planned very well. The story or stories are beautifully written and deliver quite different romances, sometimes relying on the unique magic system, making the worldbuilding stand out even more. This. Is. Great!
Although I'm not sure about everything the story wants me to believe about the world, at this point I'm actually not trying to say that those aspects were poorly written, it's more like I feel I'd have to know more about life in other Astrals to be sure whether or not it could be because of poor worldbuilding. Again, this proves that something was done right here.
If you immerse yourself in this game, you definitely think a lot about different things, this is always a good point for every story and it's definitely a plus that shouldn't be underestimated.
Another plus is the music, I didn't get annoyed after all the hours I spent reading the different routes. That doesn't happen very often in my case.
And then there's the art. I really really miss a gallery in this game!
Although the art really is nothing that special, it's not that bad either. It's still definitely a great deal better than everything I could produce. And the CG's are actually quite interesting. Two of them made me laugh out loud and I really enjoyed that. Furthermore, the rather simple art makes one focus more on what the picture is all about and the CG's definitely serve their purpose.
But there are backgrounds as well. The proportions are off quite often, but the drawn backgrounds are actually really nice to look at. I like them very much. As I said before, I really miss a gallery for the CG's and the background arts.
One other thing to criticize would be that when deciding on a route, other characters obviously have to be a little bit neglected because of the route chosen. But sometimes, the relationship between Lumen and other characters isn't really made clear then. I'm not sure how to go into detail without spoilering too much, so I leave it at that.
This game is definitely one those that I won't forget, it's totally worth it despite the language (and art) issues.
I really hope that this game will be improved someday to make the reading experience better for everyone, so that the story can get the attention it clearly deserves. The potential is clearly there.
A second thing I obviously hope for would be a new story in this awesome setting, maybe in another Astral then. Again, the potential is clearly there.
Thank you very much for your feedback!
As I already answered to a different feedback, I honestly have no idea myself how language ended THAT bad, I am probably the one who is most surprised by it. Of course that is no excuse and all I can say regarding this is that I am sorry.
As for CG gallery, this was planned in beginning but it turned out my programing skills weren't enough to make one. Originally I thought I'll learn how to make one latter in development but than development prolonged A LOT longer than expected and some things from original plan had to drop out for the sake of getting the game done, gallery was one of them.
Both things you hope for ware originally part of my plan, I though after release I would do updates for any mistakes found and maybe even make some DLC's for additional routes (like adding Mao's route). Additionally I planed that one day when my art significantly improves, or I have budget to hire artists that I would do something along the lines of a full remaster. I also had a rough idea for my next VN that would take part in a different sector of Astral. That said those ware all plans I had before I actually released this VN and saw that, financially at least, this VN was a huge failure. Now, well I still have a desire to make VNs for a living and as such both a full remaster and another VN in this setting are things I plan to do eventually, just now I need to take a few steps back before I can try myself again at VN making.
That said your feedback encouraged me to consider another option, witch is to do a full editing of text, fixing all mistakes when it comes to language and trying to re-release this game on a bigger platform such as steam. Release on steam was always a part of a plan but after sales here ended up so bad that my earnings wouldn't even cover a 100$ steam release fee I given up on it. Your post made me realize that I did do some things right after all, opposite of what I started to think and made me rethink my decision. Of course if I do that I will also upload an updated/edited version here as well, but I am not promising anything as I still need do some some thinking before I decide if to go thru with this new idea, and even if I do decide to do this it might take a wile.
Again, thank you for your feedback and thank you for playing 17th Astral!
I'm happy that my comment actually did have an effect on how you view certain things. Although you didn't make any promises, that's already good enough.
Regardless of what you end up deciding on, thank you for creating 17th Astral :)
Is there a Mac version for this game? If you made it with Ren'py it should be simple to export a Mac version. I will buy the game if there's a Mac version.
Indeed it is simple to export a mac version, but I don't have a Mac OS so I wouldn't have a way to test it. I could still make a Mac version and upload it and I am willing t do so if you understand and agree with buying an untested version. If you are fine with that please replay and I will have it made.
I'd buy the untested version. Thanks!
I will buy the game when you upload the Mac version.
I will upload it in next 24h. Sorry for the wait, I had some circumstances and wasn't able to upload it sooner.
I had upload the Mac version. Again, sorry for the wait, and please do let me know if everything works fine. Thank you.
Alright, I bought this today and started playreading it, and.... uh. Well, I'm ususally into all things Yuri, but there is a major problem with this VN: The language. It's in English, but frankly, it's so bad, it really hurts reading it. Grammar, orthography, all pretty bad.
I'm still going to go ahead and play through at least one route, but as harsh as my critizism may be, please do take it to heart; Get a proofreader who speaks native English the next time around. If you can polish the language, the whole experience will become a great deal better than it is now, believe me!
I mean, parts of the art are pretty bad as well (Characters = mspaint.exe?), but hey, it's acceptable for a cheaper Yuri VN. And those hand-drawn backgrounds even do have a real charm of their own, must've been quite a bit of work.
But the narrative, the monologues and dialogues are the soul of a visual novel - you really should get that part right!
My apologies for being so negative, but I do hope that something good can come of my feedback. I do want to see more quality Yuri VNs after all. ;)
While I don't think any writer/artist likes getting very negative criticism, I do appreciate your honesty.
I am really sorry that you find writing to be terrible, I did make sure to put everything I written true not one but two grammar checking programs and edit it, but I guess it wasn't enough...
I am aware that both my art and writing could use some improvement, and I'll make sure to improve as much as I can before I start my next VN. For this project I didn't have a budget to hire a proofreader, if 17th Astral sells decently enough I'll make sure to do so for my next project.
Thank you for buying it and I hope you still manage to enjoy this VN at least a little bit despite not finding writing acceptable.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean to completely discourage you or anything. I still liked some of the characters and their backstories, which kept me playing, and I think I finished all (!) of the routes after all. So I'm kinda like those people who 100% clear their plate at a restaurant and still complain about the food having been bad. ;)
Still, let me give you just two (of countless) examples when it comes to spelling, and that's Diane. I liked her route, so I found it a bit irritating that her name header - when she is saying something - would suddenly read "Diene" instead of "Diane". That's a bit much, you know?
Or one time Honoko says "I thought you would be more existed for it", when it's about their continuation of magic practice. Clearly, she meant to say something like "I thought you would be more *excited* about it". "exist" as in "to be present in this world" doesn't fit here at all.
See what I mean? And it's literally full of that, you'll get it every few lines. Had to play only for seconds to come up with those two mistakes just now.
However, if you do make another Yuri VN, I'll surely be back on board again, because I wanna see how you'll continue from here on out (and because I simply love Yuri). And I may critize again as well... Not sure if that's encouragement or a threat to you though, haha... ;)
Wow, I... I have no idea how I missed those... I guess I really should make sure to do editing when my head's clear rather than after all nighters.
I'm glad you liked some of it at least, and if you don't mind I would like to get more feedback on those parts as well (Characters, story etc.)
I will definitely be making more VNs in a future, I won't let one failure stop me. True I might take some time to improve my art first and to raise a budget to hire some help for my next project. (And of course, it will be GxG, I absolutely love GxG!)
I just replayed parts of the VN to refresh my memory a bit so I can talk about different routes and characters.
First: !A WARNING! There are some spoilers in this first part of my post.
Second: I want a Mao route. ;) Somehow, for her character (because she is so animal/cat-like), the broken grammar even works in her favor, because it makes her more adorable. Actually, she was the first one I wanted to go for, but sadly, that wasn't possible...
Then, Diane and Honoko. Like most girls from this VN, those two should be discussed together. I liked them, because they had such a firmly intertwined past. That made it easy to imagine the rivalry between the two, which I guess has been going on for quiiite some time. Going for either of them feels a bit like a "childhood friend wins" ending (which I love by the way).
As for our "newcomers" Rena and Ria (sometimes called "Rie"?!), the right word for the two sisters would be "contrast". At first glance, one is warm and kind, the other brutal and cold. Their routes were quite short, but I liked their endings, especially Ria's. I guess I'm a sucker for her type of character, like a Kuudere spiked with a slightly more than healthy dose of jealousy and vengefulness. A character that gives you a strong shell you need to break through to get to the soft core - that's good, some people enjoy this type of person.
And what about our best friends, Iori and Nene? Hmm, to me they were the least interesting, even though Nene was quite fun (what with her teasing our girl and all that).
I guess my favorites would be Diane, Honoko and then on a very close 3rd place, Ria. So yeah, in that order. Although, depending on my mood, I might give that 3rd spot to Rena...
Alright, that covers the girls. Now as for the story... Hm. It didn't sit quite right with me. But for that, I guess I have to say:
!!!MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD!!!
The whole "virus" thing seems strange. Sure, humans are often brutal, but not everything physical is bad, so that's why I call this setup some kind of strange "spiritual elitism". If we take a look at how tremendously brutal both Lumen and Diane were in the past - they basically committed wide-scale mass murder, if not genocide - I can't see them as being any better than the worst regular humans would've been. One scene for instance quite graphically describes how Diane kills a crusader, fantasizing about "torturing him more".
Also, what is that so-called "virus" to begin with? In some parts it feels like the VN is trying to tell us, that "being a human is the virus itself". Because, the few humans shown in the Diane/Honoko route didn't seem infected at all. They seemed like the classic witch hunters we would imagine when thinking about a somewhat more fantastical medieval age, but nothing that seemed fundamentally wrong. Criminals maybe, from the players' point of view, yes. But clearly not more so than the magic wielders who decided to burn them to ash by the thousands (actually: tens of thousands, just to pay for one life that hadn't even been taken at that point!).
The VN goes ways to show us, how hideous and horrible regular human beings are supposed to be in this world, when compared to "pure, spiritual" ones, and that just rubbed me the wrong way, because it appeared to be too extremist for my tastes. This is especially true given the actions that the "more supreme beings" have committed before their ascension to Astral.
In my opinion, such people would probably go to the nine hells and become demons rather than gods. ;)
This went so far, that at some point I felt I should side with the normal humans, against this magic/spiritual supremacy thing, because the magic wielders seemed like the actual threat to life and safety of common people, and they seemed quite hateful too. They didn't even treat humans as intelligent, sane beings but just as things that need to be extinguished...
Astral itself (its system of ascension to godhood, and its division into several parts, the priest caste etc) was kind of well-crafted. I just don't feel right about what happened back on earth and the initial step of ascension based on the information given to me by the VN's storytelling.
Seems weirdly twisted, also the memory erasing thing. If a spiritual world like Astral erases some of my memory permanently, it feels as if it's trying to hide something very important from me. And I don't like that, as I wouldn't wanna lose even my bad memories - because they are a part of me, that shall not be taken from me. And how people just wholeheartedly agreed with the erasure didn't seem credible to me.
So that part of Astral seems a bit fishy in my opinion. If I were there myself, I would'nt want to learn more magic to ascend further, but to dissect and learn about Astral's own inner workings and true purposes first, because it didn't seem all peaches and cream to me. Almost like there are some horrors sleeping below that pretty-looking surface...
Because there was always this feeling... "Something here just isn't right".
Alright, that was a VERY long reply and a major wall of text, mostly full of subjective views and opinions, but I hope this can still help at least a little bit.
PS: I want a Mao route! ;) Mao is cutest! ;)
Thank you for the replay. It's really nice to get some feedback on my work.
First regarding Mao route, I did consider adding a route for her, but time just didn't allow it. By the time I finished those five routes I was already twice over the time I was originally planing to devote to making this VN (I worked on it for 13 months and had originally planed to make it in 6). I also considered doing something a long the lines of DLC routes for Mao, Nene and a new character later on, but sales don't justify to do that now. Maybe someday in a future if I ever decide to do a full remaster... maybe...
As for the story,
In the world of this VN the more one advances spiritually the more one is intelligent, emotional, reasonable/sane, conscious, pretty much everything, and the opposite is also true, so yea the ones who have accepted a virus have so low of any of those that that they are beyond hope and just something to be extinguished witch is clearly understood by characters and the reason why they treat them as such. In this world there are only two possibilities for a future, advance and reach Godhood or case to exist, and virus embraced ones that have descended to such low levels that they have no chance of ever reaching Godhood and could as well not exist as it's only a matter of time before they do stop existing completely (True they already have so low consciousnesses that they current state could barely even be considered existing/living) and during that time they cannot contribute to anything, just destroy and taint everything they touch . They represent the worst of humanity but not in some subjective moral god or evil way more in an being small, pity, way, as if people who are only alive on the outside but completely and permanently dead inside and whatever they do they do mostly instinctively, making a world a worse place just by being in it. This VN doesn't really work in good and evil format, if anything advancing and becoming more is good doing the opposite is bad, everything else just is. All in Astral aiming to reach Godhood, become creators of worlds, are beyond such concepts of good and evil, black and white.
PS: In Mao's case, broken grammar was intentional, that's just the way she talks. I'm glad you liked it.