Winter Fragments

This was a nice little story. Admittedly, I don't have quite the same nostalgia for this aesthetic so it didn't hit me in the same way, but the vibes are nice and I liked the relationships and it made me think of my first attempts at creating fiction. It also made me think of the first freeware VNs that I downloaded, first the ones that I thought had pretty art (of course) and then the more random stuff. The unfinished demos that were never completed, the devs who'd make one game before seemingly vanishing forever, the authors who'd release multiple and improve over time. That sort of thing.

It was cozy, thank you for making. Also I find it funny how in a story like this with a younger protagonist, the 22-year old Saori is seen as a cool (if irresponsible) adult authority figure, while in a lot of your other stories with older protagonists she'd be viewed as barely starting her life and having little life experience. I especially thought of this since I read SMR previously which has a much older protagonist. Just goes to show how much a viewpoint character can change how the world is viewed, I suppose, like how you mention in the author's notes.

I enjoyed this a lot! The characters and their interactions and relationships were fun, and also had a very interesting sense of underlying tension to them, where things were clearly going well on the whole but they were never purely and uncomplicatedly nice and free-of-stakes; it was very good. (I feel kind of bad for Saori! I hope she and Chisato can keep making progress repairing their relationship as time goes on.) And I enjoyed the period-piece-ness of it; the reminders of what computers and their surrounding culture were like in Ye Olde Dayes were pleasantly nostalgic, and the brief homage to the oldschool NScripter interface was unexpected and delightful.

Also, the portrayal of the creative process itself felt both on-point and... kind of inspirational for me, in my capacity as someone who has an eternal cycle of creative-projects-in-progress none of which ever get finished? I feel like it'd benefit me to pursue a process more resembling Saku and Chisato's process here, with their mix of scoping-down of the project and intense focus on it after determining a reasonable scope. I'm pretty seriously considering trying to spend today on my current creative-project-in-progress, in fact, while this story is still fresh in my memory and thus at its peak of power inspiration-wise!

Such a cute and sweet story! The characters are super adorable, so are their interactions. Reading this VN was a very enjoyable experience. I hope Saku and Chisato will continue making VNs and being best friends... or more ^^