From the bottom of my heart, thank you for making this game.
Cassidy is amazing. I love her so much. I don't typically self-insert when playing visual novels, but so much of her dialogue was so familiar that it felt like it could have been me anyway:
As I thought, firewood isn't just lying on the ground just waiting to be picked up...
I thought that was rather an intelligent thing to say.
...where did you get my diary? Could I, um, get it back?
At the risk of being too personal, I also grew up in a sheltered, not-so-healthy environment. (For better or worse, I did not grow up as an exiled princess in a forest.) Sometimes I look back on all of the things that I believed and it feels so, so stupid. If only I'd been a bit less trusting, less blind to the world. If I only I hadn't been such a fool! I'm free now, but my past can still haunts me — and having to sit with my mistakes makes it worse.
Cassidy doesn't start the game as, uh, the brightest leaf on the branch. It's rare to see that in a VN — the protagonists I've seen have usually been more scheming or aware. It meant so much to me to see her grow throughout the story, to watch her face her life and exile and imprisonment. She's absolutely pampered, but she doesn't have to be a genius to be kind — and when the situation calls for it, she can be so incredibly charismatic.
I followed the guide for Good Ending 1, so I haven't seen the full story. Judging by the ending descriptions, I don't think I'll be emotionally ready to read through all of them for some time. Even so, the game left a mark. The art and design are so charming. The soundtrack is used so well. It's a short game, but some of the lines hit so, so hard.
It is said a fool repeats his days,
changing nought, but expecting change.
I posit these men are by routine hogtied.
They expect naught and are by naught satisfied.
I mean, come on. And on top of this, women in love?? with women??? So incredibly cool.