It's depressing how we have this exact same discussion with every update and nothing changes.
The game being a sandbox would work great if it was like Water World or Cure My Addiction (to name a couple) where there's tons of minor repeteable events and "sexy" images when you click on zones without them to make the world feel alive. Instead you have empty buildings, useless side quests (wrench, what the hell was that for?) and half the content of a usual monthly VN as it happens with most sandbox games.
He's making a linear VN, without a need to farm, and turning it into a sandbox, and it makes absolutely no sense.