Hello,
Sorry, Mr Fable, but I have a rant coming. All the criticisms I'm going to make are not just for you, but for 95% of the authors of these games that we DO want to love. I also hope you'll take those criticisms as a way to improve the story you're trying to tell and, mostly, how you tell it.
So, here we go. I'm not gonna pretend I'm a great writer or even a decent one, but I can see when something is poorly written and also why. I just played the first few minutes of the game (I've only been given 1 choice to make so far, just for you to see at what point I am in the story), but I can already see the problems. Mostly, it's called "trim out the fat".
I'm going to give an example. There is a render (the renders are very well done btw) where you see Sarah in front of an open fridge, looking at it (the fridge contains only bottles, but it doesn't matter), and you have a line of dialogue that goes something like "Sarah is in front of the fridge contemplating what to make for dinner". Then you click, and there's a new line of dialogue that is her talking to herself and saying something like "hum... let's see". And then you click again, and she says (still on the same render) : "I think I'm going to make chicken with pasta."
Now... What was the point of the 2 previous lines of dialogue ? You have more information than you need just with the last one. You don't need to tell us she's in front of the fridge... We can see it. It's called "show, don't tell" and you're showing it and telling it at the same time ! Worse, the all render, despite being well done graphically, is useless because on the previous render she was telling her husband "Go freshen up in the bathroom, I'm going to make dinner"... So we don't need this render showing her wondering what she's going to cook, we already know she's going to cook something ! If the fact that it's going to be chicken with pasta is not important, you don't need to tell us ! And the rest is the same. We see the husband grabbing two empty glasses... You don't need to write "Alex grabs 2 empty glasses of wine" because, just from the render, nobody was thinking he was riding a seahorse !
Also, I understand what you're going for, you're trying to establish the relationship dynamics of the couple before shit hits the fan, but you don't have to show every detail. It's called starting "in medias res" or "enter late, leave soon". Most of the time, if you want to show a guy going to his work, you just need to make a shot of him dressed in business wear entering through a "corporate looking door" (kinda like a door of glass, for instance), you don't need to show him waking up, pee while scratching his butt then take a shower, brush his teeth, chose what is going to wear, then see him making breakfast and then eating that breakfast, and then showing him leave the house, wait for 10 minutes for the bus and then show the entire commute... If you chose to show one, any, or all of these moments, it's because they have a certain important meaning, or that something significant is going to happen during the moment(s) you're showing, and you don't need a narrator telling us what we're seeing on the screen !
I get that these kinds of kinetic novels are better when they are a slow burn and that's what I'm looking for, but this "show and tell every meaningless detail" feels more like a slow tepidness designed (albeit unconsciously, maybe) to inflate the game time.
