I’ve just noticed the tips that you can cycle through in the main menu. One of them says that DPC wrote the entire history out in advance.
Does anyone who’s been following this thread game in depth for a long ass time have insight into the truth of this?
On the one hand the game is very well written and DPC has IMO done a good job with connecting dots and maintaining oversight over the various branches.
On the other hand you have things like Jill getting added in late, a huge growth in audience and scope of the game, also in a technical sense. I also think that a character like Quinn perhaps became more popular than expected, which may have molded the scope of her story. You could also add a growing number of side characters, the interlude and other stuff that to me seems to indicate that the story and events have been significantly molded as natural consequence of the development rather than everything being pre-written to that last comma.
Or maybe I’m just conspiratorial idk.
The overall plot was set in stone before the first release came out. (And that's how most good stories are written. It's extremely rare that a fly by the seat of your pants plot works out coherently, let alone being well written.)
As far as Jill being added "late", it's true that she wasn't part of the very initial concept. But she was added well before the original v0.1 release came out, when the overall story was still being formed in DPC's mind.
However, none of that means the less critical details, e.g. broccoli, or for that matter the dialog, were set in stone from the get go.
