I assumed that fighting (not seduction) was a viable path, getting items to level up all gear is silly, if you added a "Hunt" option that gave you better odds of finding a specific enemy that drops the loot you need it would be nice. Example; I never saw the Bone Centipede in all my time doing the mountain day events, I had to look in my bestiary just to realize I missed a monster.
I think when I first started making the game a couple years ago that was what I had in mind, allowing you to avoid accepting your role. But a lot of my ideas and plans changed for various reasons, plenty of them because I had to narrow the scope of my ideas because otherwise the game would never get completed.
The hunt idea isn't bad, I might do something with that. Maybe once you clear an area you can 'hunt' specific monsters with a higher chance of them appearing.
Everything after this is just me venting btw. I really liked the writing and having all agency pulled out from under me after the game presenting choices at the start burned me.
I totally get that. I was kind of thinking of the game like mass effect. The main story is still linear, but you can make changes to the main story based on choices along the way. But I understand that's not everyone's cup of tea. Every time I wanted to branch the story in a different direction I had to come to terms with what I was capable of by myself and scrap or modify it.
(one of the big branches would have been at the end of chapter 3. I had originally intended for the protagonist to get captured if Rhelyla was unable to save them. This would have resulted in chapter 4 taking place in the Holy Kingdom instead of returning to Blackpool. Ultimately I scrapped that cause I just didn't see me ever finishing the game if I had to double my workload by creating two seperate stories from that point on).
One thing I needed to learn from JP visual novels is the ones with good stories tend to have fewer choices. The more choices and more branching paths you have, the more the story suffers (in most cases). Since I care more about delivering a good story than about just selling a smut game, I want to stick with what I enjoy (storytelling) and what I'm not terrible at.
Another is too many sex scenes. They're not treated as a reward in this game since they're so common, unlike JP visual novels you get rewarded for your actions. (Well, depends on the novel).
It turned out because I declined going to the party with Azrael, because I was playing as a reluctant Succubus, I could not progress.
This is a decision I still regret which was a result of trying to make more paths than I could handle. I wanted to let the player continue regardless of their decision to help Rhelyla / Azrael.
I have been wanting to go back and make changes to this, but I think the changes required might be too big to handle. And overall there are so many variables that are affected there that I'm fairly confident if I change anything regarding that, I'll end up breaking the game.
Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it!
I've learned a lot from making this game and while I will probably have to stick to semi-linear stories with modified scenes based on decisions for the near future, I have learned a lot of ways to do better in my next game.
