Okay. Gonna go full ramble here so I do apologize.  One More Light just gives me a lot of thoughts and I wanna get them out.

Firstly, your VN is easily the most ambitious one I've seen so far in the submission. You put so much work in it like wow. There are so many powerful things about the story, and obviously the music, presentation, artwork, content is all top notch! This is the most technically impressive VN in the jam (other than Wayward Tower, which you also worked on lol). There are so many cool little effects and the overall presentation is just phenomenal. 

The artwork is mostly lovely and it's cool to see so many custom edits to the May Wolf assets. There is a little bit of issue in that the characters are drawn by different artists, but I don't think it's a big deal at all. The bedroom background and changes to it were very, very good. But I will say it is weird to go from natural looking backgrounds, to well-done MS Paint style backgrounds, to photos of vehicles, to scenes with actual human beings in them (ew!). The backgrounds also have varying levels of blur and censorship to them. What I'm trying to get at here is a project is more immersive if the stylistic choices remain consistent. People want that consistent aesthetic in the content they consume.

As for the dialogue and narrative, the depression parts were absolutely gripping. The lost of sense of time, passion, well-being are all relatable to anyone who has gone through that sort of thing, and the internal monologue was deep and thought provoking.

That being said, I do have a lot of concerns about the writing. And I am saying this because I care about this project and want to see it blossom into something beautiful. There is SO much potential here!!!

Okay so it feels like this is 5 different VNs stitched in one. The slice life aspect, the depression aspect, the detective aspect, the supernatural aspect, the romance aspect... All of this is converging into one here and the pacing feels very awkward because it feels like I am reading a totally different story from scene to scene. I would suggest a restructuring of the novel, or at least the order in which information is divulged to us. 

My number one suggestion ... I would actually love to see Cal be made into a full protagonist. Mikkel is so mentally distant for the scenes with his friends anyway that it doesn't feel like he's a proper narrator at these moments. We see touches of Cal's concern, his care, his love, and his perspective would more throughly develop the scenes in which he is present. 

Because of the constant genre shifts, I think cycling the POVs more often would help us adjust to the theme changes. Basically, it helps the reader know what mood and tone to expect when the scene starts.  

The pacing of scenes is quite a bit off.  The introduction to Mycroft was off-putting to me, as he sort of materalized in the middle of a parking lot. I was not expecting a new character, one with unique art, to show up that far into the narrative just out of nowhere. What he has going on is super cool, I just want his introduction to be eased into us more. Maybe at the party or when they are at the dock, we could see a brief flash of him in the distance and Mikkel could have a feeling of being watched before shrugging it off. Another good option could be moving the parking lot encounter to BEFORE the room depression arc starts. 

The backstory with the parents also felt a little rushed to me. Maybe delve into it more gradually and pepper in some forshadowing about it before we get the full flashback. 

The writing also frequently shifts from having character dialogue exclusively to getting lost in description. I would like to see the narrative tone be more layered, with descriptions of environments, the narrator's internal thoughts, and character's physical reactions being more interlaced with the dialogue. Another thing that stood out to me was all the fact/trivia dumping. While it is cool to learn these things, the main goal of the story should be to either develop the character or advance the plot. You don't want to get too sidetracked into the little things that ultimately aren't important.

Rant over! Obviously I wrote so much because I am very fond of this work. Please please PLEASE continue working on this project!