Multipath is a trap for DEV. A DEV should only think about doing multipath when the DEV / DEV team can produce a lot of content with each update.
Thanks for understanding. It's tough rendering things that some people might skip entirely when I don't really have the means to render everything. Part of my problem comes from having to render scenes because these scenes have to occur for story reasons.
I don't expect people to look at things from a Dev's perspective, nor should they. I just have to be practical about development. The MC will not lose and even if he could, nobody would pick those options/choices.
However, there are those who appreciate and support. It's always good to focus on them instead of the grumblers!
I'm grateful for any support. It's nice to know some people share the vision I'm trying to create. I just felt the need to address the people complaining just to let them know I'm open to new ideas and learning. I'm always trying to make things better and improve. I've played and enjoyed VNs. I would never make a VN that I wouldn't enjoy myself.
I read all of the support and I'll keep giving my supporters more of what they want.
I think there's some misunderstanding because nobody knows where I'm going. I already know everybody's story. I know how everything plays out. I know what everything is leading up to. Every character has a purpose and a role. I just can't say anything more without spoiling things.
So nice to be given a choice of how to deal with individual situations instead of being forced to be a brutal ass or trembling simp all the time.
One of the things I see with a lot of VNs is that people see a girl they like and all they care about is making the right choice to sleep with her. It doesn't even matter what the choice says or what happens, just as long as it's the 'right' choice. In my opinion, it totally strips the player from the opportunity of making the MC who they want him to be. Maybe you don't want to be a sarcastic smart ass every single time just because a girl wants a sense of humor. And maybe you don't have to constantly flirt with a girl to let her know that you're interested in her. Just because you compliment a girl shouldn't lock you into her romance. And just because you didn't compliment her doesn't mean you should be locked out. Real relationships don't actually work like that. I know VNs aren't supposed to be realistic but I think it's reasonable to not have every single dialogue choice determine the outcome of a relationship.
I want the player to spend less time looking at a walkthrough in another window and immersing themselves in the game. I put a lot of time into writing the dialogue, so I appreciate it when people take the time to appreciate the difference.
Maybe it's a bit too 'slow burn'-ish though? 4 episodes in and (unless I'm missing something) the mc can only have sex with a couple of side characters. Meanwhile the 5 main girls have very little in the way of erotic content. Seems weird to have more sex scenes for side characters than for the main cast.
It's slow for a couple of reasons. One, I'm still trying to improve animations, so I don't want to do a major scene without a little more practice. The other is that I'm not going to rush it. You're not gonna hook up with a girl without knowing who she is. I've seen too many games where you hook up with a girl and then the relationship gets stagnant. I want to build a real relationship with all of these girls if you're going to sleep with them. Everybody is free to ignore the game and come back later when there's more content, kind of like binging on a show once all of the episodes are out.
And all of that leads to the last point I'll make for this wall of text to address everybody else. A lot of people have said they don't like certain characters, maybe all of them. And my response to that is that you don't know these characters. You don't know them or who they are. And maybe what you've seen is enough to say you don't care to know anything about them and you're done. And that's cool.
From the perspective of the MC, he doesn't see it as a problem. He sees it as a learning experience. He sees it as a chance for his own growth. He sees it as an opportunity, an almost selfish opportunity, for himself. The MC likes people, which includes all of the girls. And I'm not talking about liking girls in that he wants to sleep with them. I mean that he likes girls regardless of whether or not he's trying to sleep with them. If you don't like not having control over friendships, I get it. But he'll never be friends with anybody without a reason.
He's trying to get a psychology degree. He's trying to learn about people and dealing with people, involves dealing with personality types. Imagine him being a clinical psychiatrist and telling someone to 'fuck off' because they've got an attitude problem. I could just have him do that. Instead, the goal of the MC is trying to fix that. The MC is a psychologist. In my opinion, saying he's some gigantic simplord because he wants to help people oversimplifies the situation.
Anyway, that's the wall. Like I say with every wall, I'm not trying to change anybody's mind. I just wanted to explain my reasoning. Everything in the story has a purpose. I appreciate all of your feedback, good and bad. I'm always open to suggestions. It means a lot to me to those of you who gave me a chance, even if you hate the game. I'm trying.
