Lookingforthis
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- Feb 7, 2018
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You don't need to catogarize this as a hybrid. There is already a genre that perfectly encapsulates this mix of social interaction, item management and overworld map control.I think his point was more the options to click on things shouldn't exist unless they do something. For example in the school you can click on Ryan's locker but it doesn't do anything yet. But you are right that the first week is very 'on rails' with the objective being to show the player how the game systems are set up without the player getting lost wondering what to do.
The game being a sand box or not is kind of an interesting question. I'm not sure if there's a term for this type of game or not yet. It's sort of like a sandbox in the sense you can wander around a world map as you please and complete events in different orders. But it's also like a VN in the sense the story is very linear. There are two main 'routes' and to progress you have to complete event chains. You going to be spending your time advancing the story not exploring the world. There aren't any side quests or secret locations behind a waterfall.
So sort of a mix between the two. The player is given more agency of their actions then a VN but is locked into a set of actions unlike a sandbox.
Renpy has a hard time with these sorts of hybrids but it's much easier for a new dev to learn then say Unity.
If people didn't hate RPGMaker so much I'd say that would be the best engine to use. NLT is probably the only dev that can get away with using it and only because he mods the fuck out of RPGM using %100 custom assets.
The Adventure genre.
Now, they have fallen by the wayside since the 90's, and this game is nowhere near as sadistically player unfriendly as the Sierra games of old were, but as the name of the genre implies finding what to do and what you should be doing is the bread and butter of the Adventure genre. That and nonsensical puzzles, which A Family Venture has thankfully omited.