A life sim where you make choices year by year makes it so easy to feel like you raised the character yourself. Do you want players chasing an ideal life path, or having unexpected moments steer things somewhere they never planned?
Thanks! Just to be upfront, I've only read your post so far and haven't played yet, so I was mostly talking about the life-choice concept earlier. My team is also working on an AI anime RPG where free-text input drives the story. Would you be interested in checking out the opening choices and character reactions? It's a free web demo, and you don't need to write a long review. If you're down, I'll drop the link and a personal invite code right here.