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Found out about this game through its inclusion in SiIvaGunner's absolutely incredible Shop Fusion Collab video game music mashup video, and finally got around to playing it myself since it's included in the ongoing (at time of writing) Palestinian Relief Bundle on itch. (The game itself is free anyway but the included soundtrack, artbook, and other extras are not.)
First things first, despite the title, this is a standalone experience. My first point of comparison would be The Stanley Parable Demonstration, since they're both very meta games where characters break the 4th wall to "demo" their game for you, only there is a real The Stanley Parable that TSP Demonstration exists to sell you on, whereas MetaWare High School (Demo) exists purely for its own sake (though the creator has expressed interest in doing more with MetaWare in some form eventually.)
Anyway, the conceit of the game is that it's a visual novel where the characters (and indeed, everyone in their world) are aware that they are inhabitants of a visual novel, or more specifically, of a demo of some hypothetical "full version" of their visual novel, which leads to jokes about unfinished assets and characters panicking about needing to not waste time because demos are short and so on. What the characters aren't sure of is what exactly their visual novel is supposed to be about (in particular, there's some division over whether it's a dating sim or not), and while they never get any concrete answers, in practice the meat of the game is simply in the varying attitudes of the characters towards the artificial and unfinished nature of their existence and their reactions to the presence of the player that their reality exists in service of. I'm a sucker for this kind of existential meta stuff, so I found it all pretty interesting. It's also just a very funny game; I especially enjoyed the game's habit of treating its own presentation hyper-literally, which leads to a bunch of absurd gags, most notably around the stylistic choice to draw the characters without eyes.
First things first, despite the title, this is a standalone experience. My first point of comparison would be The Stanley Parable Demonstration, since they're both very meta games where characters break the 4th wall to "demo" their game for you, only there is a real The Stanley Parable that TSP Demonstration exists to sell you on, whereas MetaWare High School (Demo) exists purely for its own sake (though the creator has expressed interest in doing more with MetaWare in some form eventually.)
Anyway, the conceit of the game is that it's a visual novel where the characters (and indeed, everyone in their world) are aware that they are inhabitants of a visual novel, or more specifically, of a demo of some hypothetical "full version" of their visual novel, which leads to jokes about unfinished assets and characters panicking about needing to not waste time because demos are short and so on. What the characters aren't sure of is what exactly their visual novel is supposed to be about (in particular, there's some division over whether it's a dating sim or not), and while they never get any concrete answers, in practice the meat of the game is simply in the varying attitudes of the characters towards the artificial and unfinished nature of their existence and their reactions to the presence of the player that their reality exists in service of. I'm a sucker for this kind of existential meta stuff, so I found it all pretty interesting. It's also just a very funny game; I especially enjoyed the game's habit of treating its own presentation hyper-literally, which leads to a bunch of absurd gags, most notably around the stylistic choice to draw the characters without eyes.
Me encantó. Pensé que sería muy cliché o tendría ideas quemadas, pero para nada.
A absolute gem! Dancing ending best ending
doki doki but good
Had beef with the Discord moderation team.
Good enough of a game.
Good enough of a game.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA