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2!!

Hi SweetChiel, it's been a super long time! It's awesome to see that Nusantara Bermuda Triangle just needs a bit more testing and refining before it's out for real! I loved playing through all of The Winged Ones and learning about Indonesian culture, so I'm definitely getting Bermuda Triangle as soon as it comes out.

Hi! I've just started playing Solipsis with the Princess route, and I'm super curious about who the voice actors are since they're really good! I like how you can choose between flavors of Yandere too.

Hi Ciel, it's been way too long! You know, I was really flattered you knew my username while I was frequently checking the progress on Bermuda Triangle, so thanks very much. I see I have a lot of old develops to catch up on, so I'll do that, but, as always, I'm excited to see how progress is going. 

That's great to hear! I'm, again, really excited for the next update and to see how everything plays out. The realism really works for Herotome.

Congratulations, good luck with the wedding pictures! I hope you aren't traveling too far. Even then, 23 pages is probably a good amount of work done, lol. I'm pretty unsure how much work it would be to polish CGs, but I'd assume quite a bit because of how few there are, lol. Still, good job! Lots of hard work has been accomplished, and I'm sure choosing rings and cake are pretty hard too. 

I'm sure your wedding photos will turn out wonderful.

I really loved this demo! I'm really excited to see the rest of the game when it comes out. As I've said before, it's all very charming. Despite how plain the premise or whatever could sound, you've really captured my attention, especially with the demo. I really want to see more of this whole story in general! 

Ah, and I'll elaborate more on what I really liked, lol. I hardly write reviews, sadly, so you know this is good already. Despite how oversaturated the superhero and otome genre can be, there's just something about the designs and characters that really pull me in. 

Like another player's said at the bottom, the expressions (especially Warden's awkward expressions in the MC's doorway) and development of everyone's character are really on point. To me, everyone feels very real, whether they're minor characters, the protagonist (who tends to be bland in otome games sometimes), and Warden! I'd say he's already on my list of top ten characters, and I'd like to see more of him. 

Warden and everyone all feel like people, and the simple way the story is being told through its music and protagonist really interest me. I've said this numerous times, lol, but everything is very much no-frills. From the design of the game to Warden's awkward expressions, it all feels like something that could actually happen. A lot of otome games tend to abandon that grounded sense of reality to pursue a grand sense of beauty, tragedy or romanticism, but Herotome doesn't. It has that nice, weirdly comfortable sense of reality and sticks to it! Although reality is usually much harsher and worse than reality in otome games, it really works here because of how grandiose the plot could be. With that strong sense of realism, all characters' personalities shine through as people, especially Warden and the MC. Warden is very human and down-to-earth, and I really loved that. Too often, you don't get characters like Warden nowadays that stand out enough. 

At any rate, thank you so much for such a fun demo! I really loved every single bit of it, and I bet I'll love it even more when more of the game comes out!

Do you mind my asking about whether or not Herotome will be free (not that that wouldn't stop me from getting this game)?

It's no problem, lol. I bet you'll go above and beyond my expectations since they're so simple. I'll try to play the demo at some point, but I'm really preoccupied with other obsessions at the moment, lol. I'm sure I'll enjoy it!

Hi SweetCiel!

It's nice to "hear" of the wedding stuff going down well, I couldn't imagine the stress (and it's even more surreal that people have to go to classes to do weddings, wow, but maybe that speaks more to my ignorance about weddings, lol). I don't know anything about colors, but seeing from this game and your art in general, I think you'd definitely picked out something wonderful for wedding invitations even though you had to compromise, lol.

Hm, in terms of immersion, you really had that down in the The Winged Ones, and it really felt like days, weeks and months were progressing, so I'm excited to see what you're doing for Bermuda Triangle to keep that sense of immersion. In the game before, obviously, there was a lot of music and sound effects (I really liked the click menu buttons, lol), the small chibis doing daily tasks and arguing, and the background showing time changes as you go through days. I'm curious about what you'll add! Personally, games having blank protagonists you self-insert into are somewhat a pet peeve because the relationships formed between love interests/friends don't seem as genuine or deep, so I'm excited about how you're going to flesh things out to the point where relationships and people have us immersed and engaged. That really is the art of stories, being able to build something, however fantastical, that people can love and believe in.

 As for taking care of your health, I do feel that, lol. It's kind of a constant struggle sometimes, but you can pull through! Hopefully you take care, and I'll happily wait until the next update!

(⌒▽⌒)☆

As always, though this is a day late, lol, I hope you've been taking care of yourself. Like the comments from before, I hope you're taking care of yourself since it seems like a lot to juggle wedding preparations and game dev stuff. As always, I enjoy reading up your progress!

Hi SweetCiel! Just saw the update and wanted to say hi, lol. Hm, it seems like those traditional types of people fuss more about appearances and aging, but it is what it is. It does occasionally sound annoying to deal with though, lol.

 Clothing and everything for games and otherwise, I don't know how you artists do it! It's really shocking that people can spend so much time on shoes and clothing, but the end results really do make all the effort worth it. Everyone in Nusantara: The Winged Ones had really compelling designs, even Tamara's "normal" modern wear, and all the mains in this game do too (though I can't get over Mitra's design, lol). Whether you think the shoes or such are not the most creative or the best, I think we'll like them nonetheless and know you put as much effort into the art and game as you could.

As always, it's really nice to see updates even when I'm not completely in the loop when it comes to this Nusantara game, lol.  

As for questions, what I'm really curious about is how you create your progress screenshots with "xx/xxx pages", as well as how you tackle making dialogue natural and describing what is happening to characters and telling story events without just showing a CG and calling it a day. Though this isn't a question for the characters, I'm still interested in your answer. Hopefully, this question has not been asked yet and is not too inconvenient to answer.

As always, thanks a lot SweetCiel!

Thanks for answering my question! Kahil's fighting sprite still looks really cool even without a face, lol. There's just something about people doing fighting poses that makes it universally cool, but maybe that's just me?

The cool characters are the ones I like the most, lol. It's nice to hear about things progressing smoothly, but make sure to take care of yourself in the process too! 

I've been sort of on-and-off working on my own visual novel lately, so seeing someone else's progress, even if you might think it's very little, is very heartening! I've been looking forward to hearing your updates.

Lol, it's fun hearing these sorts of updates, especially the bits about BGM stuff or things manipulating character sprites (I don't know how you experienced game devs do it, lol).

Indonesian culture sounds like such a joy to write about when not so many people have heard much about it, and I'm excited to see what'll happen next (though I really should finish the first game and then play the demo for this one, lol).

 Hm, would any of the cast enjoy horror movies?

Preliminary Review (?)

Hello, lol. I have yet to play through everyone's route because I love Mitra's route too much (lol), but I'll update this once I have. I really enjoyed how tough and cool he was, that was very fun to see, in addition to the really beautiful CGs and menu, SweetChiel! I really liked the music and prologue too, it feels so natural and Tamara as a lead felt very real! 

I didn't know much of Indonesian culture, so it was very fun to be exposed to something completely different from those visual novels based on Japanese culture and so on. 

Mitra is officially one of my favorite characters, he's so nice. I'll update this once I finish everyone else's routes!

Update: 

Sorry I've been gone, lol, life has been really wild. I'll be going back through Mitra's route and then through Reksa and Rama. The quality of Nusantara is so timeless, lol.

Aw, a proposal sounds wonderful. I hope despite situations sometimes being bad it seems like there really are good things happening! Congratulations!

TwT Poor June having to suffer more. I do wonder what's happening to Vexx. Seeing as he's been suffering quite a bit since meeting the main character and living as he has. June though... sad...

I'm really excited to play too. TwT

TwT I'm really excited too! I hope life and game dev stuff goes well, and that you have fun.