I talked a little bit already about some QoL fixes you can expect in the next update, but I'll switch gears for a moment and talk about the story, and how it unfolds.
First, as anyone who has played any of my previous games know, I don't frontload my games with exposition. It is unnatural, and doesn't happen in any professional form of story-telling. As much as is possible, I work with Tolkien's mode of LKC (least knowledgeable character) as the player's point of view. You learn as your MC learns, not before.
Second, even though this is primarily a visual novel type of medium, I still want the player to have agency. I want players to be able to explore the world they are in. I'm not going to dominate the player with my own ideas about how they ought to interact with the world. As much possible, the world you are in is indifferent to you. No one is going to push you in this direction or that direction. If you get posed with a question you don't know the answer to, you can explore and look for the answer, or wing it. Either way is fine, and you aren't going to be punished for it.
There was a scene in Metal Gear Solid where you need to contact Meryl, but you don't have her codec number. You're told to look on the back of the CD case. That advice was literal. You had to look at the back of the CD case the game came in. To me that's fun. So, yeah, you're not always going to be spoon-fed information. That's not fun. Not to me.
Anathoth is a big place. There's a lot of backstory. A lot of it can't realistically be squeezed into a straightforward narrative. If people are interested, they can learn more about it in the "about" section. If not, again, player agency. You're free to play the game the way you want.
I try not to have throw-away decisions. Every choice reveals more of the story. Call Rose on your walk, and you learn more about Rose. Call your sister on that walk, learn more about her. There's no right or wrong way to play. Just your way.
So anyway, that's more on the game than I intended. Hope that clears things up. I'm not defending it, and I'm not debating it. I'm just clarifying it as best I can.
