Why would we need to walk there? Granted, they take place in different locations within the same house, but I've seen other sandbox games move the MC to different locations when it made sense to, and have the action pick up where it left off without user's having to do more than click through the text. At worst, maybe there's a popup menu if there is a choice for some reason. I think mainly it was a case that if the entire scene played out as... well, the one giant scene like it basically was, then it kind of highlights how unnecessary the sandbox is for this game, because ultimately it's a VN that makes you walk around a lot just because. The sandbox provides the illusion of more choice and content without delivering on either. Having us kicked back out to sandbox mode and then have to click on another "memory" just because Evie took off her clothes was especially jarring and immersion breaking. I can't really fathom the logic behind that, in game or out, unless Luxee just didn't know how to program it better than that.
I'm with you there in general.
Mostly I ignore sandboxes because a lot of them also have a lot of searching for the next event, grinding, basically not enough events not to feel empty, and so on.
Then there are those sandbox games that are really linear and you jump from event to event and I'm asking myself why they didn't do a VN in the first place.
Very rarely do I find sandbox games that make sense as a sandbox and use it in a good way. But then, I'm more interested in story-focused stuff than gamey stuff, so my incentive to try sandbox-oriented games is low from the beginning.
Had I found this game randomly I would most likely be with you and ask the same questions.
At least until I learned the reasoning behind it.
Luxee said from the beginning, that this only borrows some sandbox elements and optimized them with (almost?) every update.
His reasoning was it solves his own issues with VN development (that might not be problems for other people at all) and admitted it might not even be the best way to go about it objectively, but it was what he came up with in the time before starting developing the core of the game and it worked for him.
So for me personally I'm willing to ignore some minor "flaws" (this is highly subjective of course) if it enables Luxee to continue developing this game in the way that works for him.
I hate walking around looking for events occurring. This problem was fixed in this game generally speaking, and in this update, I found that while it didn't really add anything more to my gaming experience, it also didn't annoy me or subtracted from my experience, and in most cases, it was explainable and fit what Luxee said about why and how he planned to use these sandbox elements.
Those few instances where it was a little much? Those flaws I mentioned before.
I can't tell you why, but for me, the flow of the memories in this update wasn't an issue for me at all. If anything, then the presentation of these memories - I would prefer them to show real character images instead of these plain colors.
