I Wanna Be A Game Dev!

Very, very good game slice-of-life simulator game. Excellent in a lot of aspects.  Here's my feedback.

GAMEPLAY

I, for one, enjoyed walking around the little town and trying to find people. The individual story progressions were well-timed, the way the love points intercede with the choices and fulfilling game dev requirements is very cool. And the I enjoyed the option to hang out with the old guy is reminscent of the routes in Persona 3 where you can kick back with non-waifus and just enjoy their company. It's peaceful. Though I do like waifus, I also have an appreciation for being able to hang out with other people in slice-of-life games.

I'm a sucker for those cheap minigames. A lot of them here were pretty... eh. Filled with some BS, but that's part of the fun, right? It took me until Week Six to learn that you can click a color twice to mix it in the Art cooperation game in the game club room. 

I liked the little quizzes at the start of class. Some of them went way over my head, but a couple of them I actually got. For instance, the browsing directory for a Unix Shell question, since I used DOSBOX quite a bit, I was like, isn't that 'cd'. And when I got it right, I felt smart. Maybe I really do have what it takes to be a game dev :^)

WRITING

The writing was exactly what it needed to be. There were some great jokes that made me laugh. The individual scenes were short in themselves, which is good because a lot of visual novel scenes overstay their welcome. Good pacing, in other words. 

And while the humor was good, the drama was even better. Problems felt real. Insecurities added lots of depth to the characters and the relationship between them.

My favorite scene was the skiing scene where you and Daniel are teaching Amelia how to ski. I don't know what it was, but something about it just warmed my heart.

I liked that there were a lot of characters. There's a bit of appeal for everyone. I liked how in the beginning I'd keep stumbling across new ones. Always love a wide cast.
My favorites were Daniel, Amelia, Britney, Emi, and Akari in that order. A lot of the characters got better the more you progressed into their routes, which is a mark of good pacing and character development. I noted this especially with Daniel. I thought he was an asshole I was going to avoid the entire game, but he got some really cool moments Week 2 that make me wanna follow his route toward the end. Brittany and Amelia have that too, to a lesser degree.
Out of the ones I socialized with, I disliked Chloe the most. Some scenes were alright, but the parts where she gets snippy makes me not sympathize with her at all. Note: This doesn't mean she's a poorly written character, in fact I appreciated that depth to her character. Narratively great.
One character I though I would like that I didn't was Alexis (too many names that start with A, btw). In contrast to the other characters, she seemed moderately inconsistent.  Talking to her felt like nothing was really being communicated. Her route had nothing to it. I assume she's part of the setup for Act 2, but I don't really care.

ART

The UI could be better. The pause menu and title screen look very amateurish, while the pop-ups during the game seem professional. I'd advise maybe having some stylistic borders to those screen next time, as right now they look like placeholders.
If you were going for aesthetics reminiscent of an amateurish design, I'd recommend you keep things consistent and unified across the board.
In game UI is fine, in fact I like the speech bubbles. It's a good way to do dialogue, as it centers the view around the face. Also keeps the conversation snappy by ensuring characters can't say too much.

As for the character art, it looks generic. I assume you know what I mean by that, but I don't want to make accusations, since I actually don't care about it that much. In terms of visual appeal, it's perfectly fine for me. You got some good expressions in there, it's not ugly.
I will note the inconsistency between the heads and the clothing. That's bad.

The best part of the art was the PSX town. So beautiful. And the way it changed with the seasons was always really stunning. Just very calming, walking around in that. Though the flat background sprites could have been designed with a little more heart, so as to keep the vibe.

MUSIC

The music was calming and fit the mood.

BUGS

There was one moment when a line wouldn't fit in the textbox. I think it was in a park scene in Week 1.
Also, I had at least 6 crashes. Usually around autosave points. I was always able to load the autosave though, so I wasn't too upset about it. Could just be Unity being Unity though.

ENDING SPOILERS

The ending was garbage. There's no other way to put it. The reason I played the game was because I wanted Danganronpa, but just the slice-of-life scenes, Doki Doki Literature Club, but without the twist. I don't need a twist. Quality speaks for itself.
Just disappointing, since I know the sequel is going to go in a different direction, and I probably won't play it.
My advice is, if you're going to add a hinge like that in the plot, do it earlier. That way, you can expand upon it in the narrative and work with it a little. And for the people opposite of me that like that genre shift, they don't have to play twelve hours of slice-of-life scenes just to get to what they want at the very end.

CONCLUSION

On the whole, excellent work. Very fun visual novel with a ton of content and effort put into it that's absolutely worth the play.

Please no loving kids theme (I'm a minor)

I will play it thanks