Our Shared Lie

Since I got -11 downvotes I think it'd be best if I explain what's going wrong. Again, not doing this in the spirit of disparaging a fellow writer, far from it! They either have poor planning skills and are showing their characters future personality traits too early, or they are suffering some kind of prefrontal cortex damage or autism, making it difficult for non neurodivergent people to follow along. 

How does one go wrong with that they are supposed to write? Well consider the medium of Visual Novels. Suppose a CGs shows a lion hunched over scratching his chin. The writer need not write that in "The feline lowers his body while fitting his paw in his chin..." And yet this is what happens. As a writer, you have to consider your reader's time and entertainment level. Cutting is an importing tool in your editor's repertoire. And if a writer can't self edit because of their ego telling them not to judge themselves, then.... You kinda have a crappy writer who is never going to be capable of improving. It's all downhill from there and doubling down any time someone gives advice.

As for entertainment, well let's go back to when they examine the watch again. The MC does an examination of it and then declares it a mechanism. So far, all it does is display "0.5%". A button exists, but none of the characters so far can interact with it. / Immediately, as a reader, this sounds like a 0.5% survival chance and the big button is supposed to be some kind of kill history? As a rational person and not someone who goes with the flow, I am constantly making assumptions. It feels great to get things right. It feels anxiety inducing to get them wrong. It feels generally uncomfortable if my expectations aren't met. It feels too boring if I can see where this is going. / Let's move on... They encounter (supposedly friendly?) people who are hostile and trying to kill them... Okay... This feels boring because I saw this coming. Can't you as the writer redo this so the foreshadowing isn't ruined? I don't really count being descriptive during the mysterious watch and thrilling confrontations as entertainment. That's too surface level. If you exclude the spelling and grammar, even a 6 year old can evoke a sense of mystery in an unknown mechanism or a thrilling confrontation with a bigger person with a weapon trying to bring an innocent smaller defenseless person harm. But we are +18. It takes more to entertain us than just making things more mysterious or making the weapons/species more dangerous. Sadly, this is the part where no one else can help you. It's up to your imagination and craftiness.

I don't know where to begin with their broken rationalizations... The whole thing is like this. Whenever the MC takes a moment away from studying or introspecting, we find him in situations he shouldnt be in. Just imagine yourself a bird looking at things unfold. It seems random. Never mind some of the internal stuff going on relies on some leaps of faith. If we go back to that watch for example, when the MC is studying it, trying to figure it out, he then declares it (not assumes it) is a mechanism. That implies there is a gimmick or more to it than what we can see. And he got it right, when just a moment ago his best guess was it was a watch with a TV screen. Now where did this divine providence come from? Does the writer say the MC suddenly remembers seeing something like this? No. Opposite in fact. These anthros might not even have their version of an Apple Watch. Which is why it is strange and confusing if the technology wherever they are appears to be advanced. Advanced enough to even give them amnesia. The whole thing feels like a cross between Hunger Games and Saw with a tech gimmick. And it tries hard to be that without first giving the proper logic/exposition. Part of the entertainment is ruined because I can see where this is going before it is even explained. Im not interested in the lie because everyone so far is murderous and I probably know what psychopaths would want to lie about. You have not given us the time to bond with whoever is "ours" in Our Shared Lie. Both together, I don't even think this VN was written for someone like me... Or for most people... Im down for some drama and discovering the shocking truth the MC has been hiding... But ya kinda made me uninterested and presumptive with the poor planning of how/when things got revealed. Take Echo for example. For someone playing it for a first time they'd never guess the MC was a murderer until the last 8/10ths of the game, perhaps it might even skip their head. It almost did with my first playthrough (Leo). Looking back it all made sense. But I never expected them to take that direction. I was always pleasantly surprised (even if it is shocking). The pay off was worth it. There is no pay off here because the writer refuses to build it up before thrusting us into danger or making us guess what the lie is. No one randomly appears on an island with killers because theyre innocent. But a reunion gone wrong due to paranormal activity? No one would guess the MC deserves that until they uncover the truth at least half way into any route. 

The prose in this VN is pretty average. For something so beautiful, I expected more from the writing team.

A lot of things happened that didn't make sense, and no, I am not referring to the situation the characters find themselves in. I mean their emotional and rational reactions and thought processes.

I mean no offense, but is the writer (or at least the one planning the scenes) autistic? Or is the MC supposed to be autistic?

It is extremely frustrating and uncomfortable to experience the story in his POV and none of the characters are acting normally. So I have to assume the writer is the one at fault, or it was intentional because they want us to experience what it is like being in an autistic person's POV.

I recommend you take a BIG step back and put on the shoes of your characters when writing them, their motivations, and so on. This feels like a single person who doesnt know how people normally interact is playing with them like dolls.

Hello! I found the game very interesting and cool, and I wanted to know if you are thinking about translating the game into Portuguese? I particularly liked it a lot, and being a Brazilian, I would really like to play this game again in Portuguese!

Good afternoon

I'm a representative of the"Fluffy Paw", visual novel translation team of enthusiasts. We are interested in your visual novel and would like to work on its translation into Russian.

Therefore, I'm writing to ask for your permission to translate your visual novel and publish translated version on our boosty(https://boosty.to/ruwoolf). We post translation of the novel for a paid subscription for a period of two weeks, and afterwards we publish it for free public access.

Without any doubts, our side is ready to assure :

1) That we won`t translate or publish your novel builds if they are considered in paid access on your Patreon (or other recourses). We translate and publish only  public builds of novels.

2) We make sure to include a link to your original novel and your social media  as the author of the novel.

3) If you are interested in a Russian translation, we will also be able to send you tl russian files so that you can directly implement the translation into your work.

We are looking forward for your answer. Have a great day )