As for the bituka and julie's quest , writer wanted to make clear you only get one of them not both.
Or neither, if Julie's path is already closed by the time you fuck her at Bituka's.
And I don't mind that this happens; I think exclusive paths are fine. For me it's more about this not impacting the MC's corruption. Especially if his corruption is low. A
pure MC fucking her should have an impact on his state of mind.
So yeah it was changed in that sense due to request , again.. I do listen to people here not rants tahts all so your comment was pretty fair hence I included the respected opinions part.
That's fair, but I think this adjustment also introduced some bugs. For instance, the game assumes that the MC went to the club with Bituka and Julie, but this is gated by corruption and might not have happened.
It's also possible to softlock certain paths. For instance, with Zoey, if you don't gain a point with her when watching the stars. You're then tasked with hanging out with her in the afternoon, which gets automatically rejected when tried.
It could be beneficial to implement a kind of
retry system, where players can retry an event to get the best score. In the case of Zoey, this could be a repeatable nighttime event until the player earns the point, or they make clear they have zero interest in Zoey and close her path. This kind of gameplay is usually found in sandboxes to avoid lockups like this. Another alternative is a repeatable event that earns automatic points, up to a certain maximum based on the story progression. For instance, the MC could meet Zoey at the gym and get a point up to a maximum of 2 or 3, so they can continue with the afternoon hang.
From a gameplay perspective, instead of doing the auto accept/decline, you could have strict control over the choices a player can make. (Like going to the club at Bituka's) You'd need a repeatable and avoidable event that creates corruption, for as long as corruption is lower than 5. Then gate all other path-starting-choices by this amount of corruption.
The important part of this gating is that the invitations themselves are repeatable, not the requirement. The player can reject the invitation or might not have enough corruption to accept it, but there should be a path for them to gain corruption and then go back and accept the invitation the 2nd time.
The issue with this is that players will feel that gaining corruption is the main gameplay loop and automatically start to interact with it. After all, when a game says, "you can't do this yet", players will look for ways to get the required score.
Also, be aware that, "
Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game".
Players will say they want easier access to X or Y but then complain that the gameplay is missing or the story nonsensical. Having hurdles is fine; they just have to be fun and/or meaningful.
An example of this is the MC telling Rachel that he spent time researching teaching methods for students with dyslexia. There's no meaning behind these words because we haven't overcome that hurdle, he just magically has this knowledge. One or two repeatable events of the MC actually doing this research would make us feel more invested in this storyline without becoming grindy.
Hell even after all this I might do a VN once sandbox shifts into New york as florida will be fully done and then we can arrange events accordingly.
To be fair, it would make more sense to me from a narrative point of view if the sandbox opened up after the 2nd psychologist visit. That's the point where we get the call to action to spread our wings and bond with people. It's possible to close or sabotage several routes before having this talk.
The week leading up to it could be used to play some events automatically where we get to know the different Lis, and learn more about the MC's past.
Switching to VN might be good, but, like with sandbox, it all depends on how it's handled. You could go entirely kinetic, which would have its fans and detractors but lets you tell the strongest story... Or you could go for pathing as complex as BaDIK, which is a huge undertaking. Personally, I'd keep it simple with the current stat system of love vs lust that gates choices and changes interactions. But, seeing how much corruption content there is compared to love, I also think that the way an LI (not all LIs) are interacted with should have an impact sooner.
For instance, a character like Julie might introspect why her advances have no effect on the MC, and try a different approach that teaches her that lust and love are different things, and great when combined. After all, even an MC who rejects her advances is still there the moment she needs help.
