Version Played: "Final", downloaded here
Wow, this one is a mixed bag. I will say up front: if you don't have as much time to play every renpy game on this site regardles of quality, in the first post go the devs other game Mist, and play that. This game is okay, Mist is absolutely great.
Also: the mushrooms had me giggling way more than they should have. I wonder if the Mist shrooms are a nod back to this?
Characters: The strongest point of the game, I like each of them that's introduced. They are a little flat and underdeveloped, but that's more a matter of time than anything else.
Renders: 3.5/5 maybe? It's the same claymation style as their new project, but the quality is not as high. The environments are a lot more detail sparse, although that comes across as a stylistic choice, but the characters themselves feel like they could just... be a little better. quality
Story and Writing: Good points, there's a... bad turn at the end, which the dev has acknowledged. When I got to "the end", my response was "well, that was abrupt"... and I read the dev note on the first page. The story is serviceable overall, the world building is actually pretty nice, if a little to quick to info dump too often, but the game would need to be a lot longer to spread out that information.
I will say: someone in this thread had an idea of rewriting the bad scene with Hilde, to use aphrodisiac, since they're an alchemy nerd... after mist, it would nice if 395 at least did that, if they don't plan to rework the game as a whole, from what they've learnt since.
The Sex: Decent enough, there's not much, but there's a little variety between the scenes that are there.
Mechanics and Gameplay: Fairly rounded, the interface could use imrpovement, the grind is balanced around the time frame nicely
Closing Notes and Thoughts: a middle of the road game, and a decent first effort. 395 says how they've learned from their mistakes in this game, to imrpove their work going forwards - can confirm they've upped the quality in every aspect of their work, by leaps and bounds. Part of me almost gave this a 2, the way the ending clashed with everything else... and I can't rate Mist highly enough. Like I said in the story remarks above, I would love to see 395 come back to this, ideally for a rull reimagination - but even just a touch up.
2.5/5 go play Mist instead (and then come back to this if you want to see where that came from)