so when is the next release?
3. The fuck is taking you so long, Heniss?
After Release 4, which contained the 'caging' content, it became clear that doing several more updates with sub/dom/neutral paths fairly close together wouldn't work. So during the development of Release 5, I decided to go for a temporary full split following the ballet scene. Key word 'temporary'. It made a good bit of sense at the time: I wasn't sure how feasible it was to develop three unique paths at the same time and I wanted to give it a test run. In addition, I thought it would be neat for players to have a taste of the path before they lock it in.
So the plan was: split into three unique paths for Release 6 + 7, merge them in Release 8 and then let players make their final path choice in ~Release 9.
It only really hit home how difficult that would be when I was writing Release 6, and I realized that every single thing that happens in one path has to be accounted for when a player switches to/from another one.
For example: sub MC builds a structure, neutral MC does not build the same structure. If sub MC wants to switch to the neutral path, or neutral MC to the sub path, I have to appear/disappear the structure somehow. And this isn't just about physical objects. If the relationship between the MC and Isabella is different in the dom path and the neutral path, this has to be accounted for when a player switches from one to the other.
You can get a good idea of the scope of the problem if you have played all three paths in Release 6, and you imagine having to bridge all differences between them for all routes a player can take:
Dom -> Dom
Dom -> Neu
Neu -> Dom
Neu -> Neu
Neu -> Sub
Sub -> Neu
Sub -> Sub
Every single one of these has to make logical sense and be without continuity errors.
The easy way out would've been to forgo the merge and to make the current split permanent. That would have saved a lot of work at the cost of a ruined path choice system. In the end, I decided to rather slog through it, but to get it over with immediately, i.e. in Release 7. So the next update will contain the seven routes listed above, leading to the three permanent character paths that will remain completely separate until the end of the game. This will finally give me the freedom to develop them all without compromises. But getting there is rough and I'm still working on inconsistencies I find while testing.
