edit: I wrote this post before realization that incest patch fooled me more than I thought. Thanks Mathesar for pointing me that and actually I think original story makes more sense.
Just one question after playing this for about half an hour: is this a psychopath dating sim or something? Almost every character that showed up in this game seemed to have some kind of mental problem, the ways they speak and act are just abnormal, yet Ellie, the one who actually has the mental disease, is the least annoying character(quite adorable tbh). I wonder if their characteristics will be changed later in the story, or will remain the same.
After finishing 0.9.1 two days ago I think I can answer that.
Main story is actually very good and well written. MC's house was not the nicest one, his dad was very abusive and that left mark on all family members. Details of his childhood will be relieved partially in time, mostly during his night nightmares when he recalls childhood situations. I will not spoil details since as I said, it is really good (real-like) but let's say all this crap lead to MC leaving house for 6 years.
I would divide this game to 2 main parts, main story and AVN content story. Main story:
- This is not psychopath dating sim and beside history, there are no abusive or dark content in game. Nightmares themself are just dialogues with foggy background.
- In dialogues with your mother you can be nice or not nice (it adds some abusive points?) but for me it is more like "very nice or normal". For example during workout with her, she tells you she enjoys it but have problems with being consistent, telling her that she should workout more is like a negative response and you can tell her she looks great anyway alternatively. Overall amount of points results in just barely different dialogues with the same result.
- MC is nice to all other characters, some may say that you can abuse (or even rape) Kathe but nothing is forced here and she wants it just says otherwise.
- Almost every character have some kind of mental problem? Don't we all, lol? They are actually all quite normal I think, you will get them know better in time and will see that all of their behaviors are either just a facade or are perfectly justified.
AVN content story:
- All characters have different needs and if you take a second to analyze it you will see it is actually very well written. Mother needs someone who will treat her with dignity and will give her some attention she needs, Katherine is shy af because was socialy distanced all her life, Hannah is just a young naive girl in love, Jada is a nympho which is partialy result of her home situation too, Ellie is in love with MC because of her traumatic experiences in past etc etc.
- There is avoidable harem although since I went that path, I'm not sure how game develops that way. Dev tried their best to somehow make it "normal" and characters more or less acts like that. Kathe has the biggest issue with that but she accepts that anyway (or will in next updates), not sure about Hanna tho.
Overall it is actually a good game and if you want almost-incest harem game with a good story then go for it. For me Ellie was not "cute" and I think this whole "cute animal" thing is related with mental issues (in real world) but who am I do judge, as long as both parties are ok with that, kink is a kink.