You can download both and try which version you like. And yes First time is a separate side story.
The sandbox starts from the hospital. It’s strange that for you it starts with your friends’ apartment. "Anna - The First time" is a separate short story about Anna. There are several such short stories about her. This was written about just a couple of pages ago.
I was told one of the stories starts with her on a farm. Strangely, never seen that one.
I keep telling everybody, it's best to wait for the bug-fixed version. It's like a few days later, which is nothing. And who knows when the VN version will be released. It can be the same time as the bug-fixed version, the day after, or in some cases several weeks later. But one thing is certain, it's never released when the beta version is released.
I can categorically state that both versions start in the hospital. If the sandbox version isn't starting in the hospital then it must be bugged. For instance, I haven't been able to play the sandbox version properly for about 8 months, because of a bug that only seems to affect certain people, who downloaded a particular windows update earlier last year. The vast majority of people aren't affected by this bug, and it seems to effect those people who are, in different ways. So perhaps you're being affected by the same bug? In November the Devs claimed they had a possible solution for this bug, so maybe we'll get it in this update or maybe we won't. And if we do maybe that will solve this issue for you?
I would suggest that this version we don't see I.e the $50 version is the one to get rid of the bugs, this version should in theory be bug free.
The non-beta and VN versions for the last 5 updates or so have released 3 days later.
I think it's pay more for the exclusive early preview access to the episode (with 98% completion).
The mini-game "Anna - the first time" begins at the farm.
