It's not like Luxee said themselves that their second project would, in fact, be a departure from the style of their first because they wanted to try their hand at making something different and more sandboxey compared to the linear nature of PL, or anything...
It IS forced, because even if you IGNORE and skip all of her content, you're FORCED into a relationship with her. That's how it's forced. And ignoring her doesn't give you the choice on what to do with her after you catch her diddling herself in the apartment. You don't have a choice whether or not to be with her. Ignoring her FORCES you into a relationship. No thanks.
I'd rather have a choice in my games, so I choose to treat her like a paratrooper without the parachute.
Yup, it most certainly is. It's not a straight VN like PL was. As far as a technical update, it does need that as well.
Playing events out of order sometimes means the script isn't dynamic, meaning if you do such and such event, it doesn't come up in another girl's conversation or in another event i.e. like how Harem Hotel is, where the changes in the order you play events happens in another person's event.
For example, I whacked out Nea before I did the pool event or did Cha's route, and nobody mentioned what happened. I don't know if that will even be a thing in this game. In Harem Hotel, if you meet certain people before a different event, like one for Nia, that event's dialogue with Nia would be different. That's not the case here.
The pool event's dinner, where Evie shows Jamie and Tess the video of the MC beating down Eric, Jamie says she wants to meet her. MC doesn't respond differently, he says simply "maybe one day she's shy" where in reality she's dead. Same thing with Cha when talking to her in the outside area at school.
This game could be so much better if one event's consequences would be referred to in another event. That's why Harem Hotel is so good. It's a "living world" and the scripts are dynamic, meaning they change accordingly.
I have high hopes for this game in the future in getting the girls that I want, but I think Luxee might need to take some inspiration and guidance from Runey in how to approach a sandbox game.
I really really do hope that somewhere down the line that, in my save, that character's plunge will be addressed. There is one event coming up in .08 for that character, hoping that's the one that does it. I'd like to move on with the girls I care about, and not be forced to deal with the character I don't
So at some point in time there was a developer who had a thing for trans-people and while doing PL added a trans side-character.
At the same time he worked on ideas for a new game that had one big starting point - a trans character.
Things about it were mostly kept to Discord but seeped into F95 posts from time to time as well.
He then at some point made a first demo of that new game but returned to PL for another year based on Patreon polls.
Somewhere (I feel like it was here as I'm not around on Dircord servers that often and saw it), Luxee shared some information about what the game would look like technically, and why it would (might have been on this thread as well).
He said, that the classic way of telling a VN, that he also used in PL, was an issue for him and his writing.
He said, that in this way of writing he alwayd felt compelled to spell out everything, including boring/unneeded stuff, as in recording everything that went on, instead of writing scenes and only what he wanted.
He then said he had found a solution to this Me-Issue and was fully aware the majority of people might not see an issue to begin with and that the solution might not be the perfect one. But that it was the one he found and that worked for him - and at some point you can't just switch the system anymore.
The solution he found, was to borrow sandbox elements to tell a VN - so NO, he's not doing a sandbox. And he's not doing it wrong as well - he's doing what he said he was going to do:
He packs each scene up in a memory that you can select and play.
This way, he has a structure that feels detached from telling a story chronologically, that he has no issue with leaving stuff out of and can also write what he feels like writing, istead of feeling forced (and being forced to because of updates and not changing content of past updates) to continue chronologically, just because something is next timewise.
So this is still a VN, just presented a little different, but still mostly linear.
All of this is not really spread out in the games description though, so a lot of people might be unfamiliar with parts or even all of this.
Then, a lot of people learned that Nea existed and was trans. And instead of saying 'I don't wan't to play a trans-game' and leaving, they complained - massivly and in 'rude' ways a lot of the time.
Possibly because it wasn't JUST Neas story.
So Luxee agreed to implement something to remove Nea from their experience. And he did it in a way that didn't need him to redo a lot of game content and adjust all future content.
But people kept complaining and harrasing him, so the in the meantime confirmed third option, to have a friendship route a lot of more restrained people asked for, was removed again when Luxee had enough.
SO:
The game was always going to have Nea.
The game was, is, and won't be a sandbox, unless Luxee changes his plans.
The whiners got Luxee to leave, killed Nea and ruined the friendship option.
