No, not really sure about what he wants with this game. Money, I suppose... because, obviously, he doesn't really care about improving the gameplay; nor the graphics for all that matter. Do you guys like his animations? Do you like his color palette (as everything is reddish at any time of the day?). I am aware that some people like their massive tits, but what about the other players that may have different opinion on the matter... That doesn't bother him a bit so to me all is good and very cool and also very dead... project.
I've been following this game on and off since before it was posted here and in that time I've come to understand that this will probably never have what I would consider "satisfying" gameplay and that is because of one thing: Derelict doesn't really play games. This isn't an assumption either, he outright admits on discord that beyond the souls series he doesn't play video games and that shows in his work. I believe that he genuinely cares and wants to create something good but his reluctance to come out of his comfort zone combined with his lack of experience in actually experiencing games and the systems that make them satisfying to play makes for a poor development mindset.
The reason I say this is because if he really was just in it for the money he would enable male on male content among other often requested features but he doesn't, for better or worse. The optimist in me wants to say that once all the systems have been built they'll "click" together which has been the case before such as when color blending and the "atypical" trait made breeding more interesting but with every "gameplay" change it feels worse to me. Unlike with the changes to breeding coloration I don't see how he could make the process of actually catching and breeding interesting with what he has now, the gameplay loop is flawed at its core which is only made worse with the recent addition of race specific world levels.
The erotic content is too separated from the gameplay, the game is grindy so naturally you want to be efficient so what do you do? You buy fluids to catch nephelym which means you don't see sex. You want to raise their levels to complete mission board requests? You use the "quick" option in breeding which means you don't see sex. Now you might be thinking "well taking the quick sexless path is optional, just don't do it" but you're looking at an
insane grind if you plan on, for example, raising a races world level by catching through surprise sex, you will absolutely get bored of the animations long before you're through.
Here's the crux of the situation: How do you fix these problems without making the game even more grindy? This is where I'm at and why I believe the game will likely never be anything more for me than an animation viewer. To end on a positive note I think the Motherly trait was a great addition, making pregnancy more relevant and rewarding and anything that increases xp gained is a godsend.
