Hey! Pretty strong start, I like the attention to detail in rendering and the level of detail in the scenes! I just have some suggestions on design and writing.
- Intro, establishing relationships
- Assuming a family structure is intended, it's impossible for us to know what the relationships between characters are supposed to be before the story starts or before we even see them. We're basically guessing then moving forward until you piece together what the right structure is. You could solve this by visualizing the intended structure when the player creates roles. For example, show a portrait of each character in 2 rows, with Evelyn on the top center row and then the player, Madison, and Lucy side-by-side on the lower row. This mysteriously-tree-shaped organization would hint at the intended family structure.
- The Charles and Avery characters in the early scene came across as a means to dump info/backstory/context. In general, a more graceful and immersive approach is to give that information as necessary through the events of the story itself. Just something to think about.
- The transition into the scene with Madison in the car was a little jarring, and it seemed strange to be in conversation with her in the text before we even see her on screen.
- Chess
- As a chess player, this scene with Madison was a bit painful
- Black (Madison) moved first! White should move first.
- Madison called her piece "tower", a chess player would refer to it by its actual name, a "rook."
- The final position shown is actually not checkmate--white actually has two valid moves:
- block check by moving white bishop between white king and rook
- move white king to black tile up and to the right of its current position
- Black is still absolutely winning no matter which move is made, but it isn't checkmate. This is probably the most nit-picky thing I've got to talk about though, and I absolutely LOVE that you included chess, I'm only pointing this out for authenticity
- Character design
- Skin on Madison and Evelyn looks a little... flat? Like they're wearing too much makeup. Skin is also a bit too reflective/shiny, looks like plastic in some scenes (Madison chess game, for example, reflecting a lot on hand/arm/chest)
- Evelyn looks....off. Tarakis mentioned her makeup and eyeliner, which I definitely agree with as it's fucking thiccccccc. Also, her thicccccc black eyebrows don't match her hair, which doesn't look dyed (it would look more natural if her natural hair color was black and if she had dark roots). I pointed out that she doesn't look old enough to be a mother of 20-somethings, but a different skin texture could do it.
- Lucy is cute af
- Flashback transitions
- Sailboat and college dorm room flashbacks were a little jarring, mostly due to the lack of much transition between them.
- There's 0 transition between the fishing flashback and the college flashback, felt a little narrative whip-lash
- Some ideas:
- a visual fade-out and fade-in for entering scenes in memory?
- give an end to the scene with Madison in the bathroom, have the player go to bed and experience the flashbacks (independently?) in a dream?
That's all I've got. Like I said, I really like it so far, and I'm only saying all this because I want you to succeed. I think there's a good story in here and I can definitely see the effort and attention paid, so keep it up