There's an emotional beat in Dale's route of Don't Take It Personally That I've been agonizing over for basically the whole time I've worked on it. I worried that it's too much, too overwrought, that it's going to land wrong and take the whole route with it. Even as recently as last month I had serious thoughts about cutting and replacing it before realizing that, nope, it's too central to the story as it exists and cutting it would demand a top-to-bottom rewrite.

And now that it's done, yeah, I think I nailed it. At least, we'll see once people get their hands on it.

Don't Take It Personally, I Just Don't Like You

hope the devs dont take it personally but i did NOT like this

characters are like rapid-fire texting each other on flip phones and then one says its "the nineties" and i snapped and closed the game

this felt like the devs really liked we know the devil but didnt know why they liked we know the devil

editor's note - since i wrote this it looks like the full version of this released in 2023. it doesnt look like its going to address my problems with it but i felt like it was worth mentioning

I don't check reviews for my stuff often, hence me only seeing this now when it was posted last week, but I'm always so happy to see reviews like this. Very glad that Don't Take It Personally, I Just Don't Like You has gotten almost exclusively positive responses like this so far.

Prior to launch I was very scared that some of the turns the story took were going to lose people, especially when things started to get heavy in the back half of basically every route. I'm so thankful that there is an audience of dating sim fans who are willing to interact with some pretty rough subject matter, and I'm thrilled that they feel that the game handles it in a way that is emotionally resonant and rewarding.

Can't wait to get the other two routes out to y'all.