This game gives me Summer's Gone flashbacks, and it has all the same issues. Beautiful renders let down by poor storytelling. I'm going to be harsh here because I think the developer does have talent, but they're making some elementary mistakes on the writing side that are letting their game down.
Front-loading your game with backstory is a serious no-no, especially when it drags on and on like this. It takes far too long for the MC to reveal his goal, and then we're given no indication of how he plans to carry it out. A story like this should have a protagonist with a clear goal and some ideas on how to pursue it. Then you throw challenges in his wake and have him overcome them. As of v0.042 we've just been given massive dumps of backstory. This kind of thing kills forward momentum in a story. Nothing is happening. A story needs things to happen in it. You need to have events or people are going to get bored.
This game also has a case of what I've come to call "bitch MC syndrome". The MC should be the main character - the one who has goals, makes plans, takes actions, and otherwise drives the story forward. Instead this guy spends his entire time pining for a girl who ran off on him decades ago while getting pushed around by multiple female characters. If that's your fetish then all power to you, but it does not make for an endearing protagonist. An MC should be making decisions and taking actions to progress the story. But instead we get a guy who spends the first chapter asleep, then does nothing, then gets yelled at, then falls into a pool and has to be saved, then does more nothing. He is almost entirely passive. This is the exact opposite of what a main character should be.
I know someone will cry "but things are happening! they're developing characters!". Character development is not a substitute for story. Character development should happen within the context of story events. So far it's just been people in rooms having conversations with little to no forward progression. It takes much too long to find out what the MC's goal is and by that point all his pining and being bullied turned me off so much that I could not care. An audience will rally behind an MC with a clearly defined goal and a plan for pursuing that goal. Then when you throw obstacles in his path the audience will root for him. But I don't want to root for this guy. I don't want to be him and that is fatal for an MC. Remember writers, the MC is the player, not you. MC's are player surrogates, and if the player doesn't like your MC then why would they want to continue playing your game as him?
Perhaps it's not too late to salvage this MC but it would require substantial reworking of the initial chapters. Trim down the flashbacks and feed them out gradually as the MC is taking action to pursue his clearly articulated goal. Give us the goal first then motivation. And for christ's sake, don't have your MC be bullied by every other character; pass out for no reason; or otherwise display constant weakness. Weak characters aren't deep and they certainly aren't attractive to players. You can have a character be sympathetic without them coming off like a complete pussy. Make your MC the kind of character people would want to be, an aspirational figure. Strength is desirable; weakness is not.
