Wait we make Visual Novels! I thought we made one of those games that cause you to wander around for three hours because you cond not find the last scene you were missing. You know those sandbox things. Yes, we could do a sandbox with little in the way of a story and honestly would be easier less renders and less Writing. But we like substance and buildup oh most importantly a story. Sandbox games are mostly programming work.
Amen! If you only play one or two or even three games, sandbox games are fine. But, there are just too damn many great VNs out there.
I started out playing Big Brother. I liked it so much, I supported it at the $40/month level. Perhaps I enjoyed it too much, because I started looking around for other games to play between releases. I found several from recommendations on Patreon. Then I found F95!... Alas!... FREE GAMES to download!
It wasn't long before I discovered the Latest Games page. Perusing that on a daily basis, I could discover countless games that looked interesting to my tastes. I had to pare down. Of course, Big Brother was one of the first to go. But Dark Silver had abandoned that game, before I abandoned him. However there are other truly great sandbox games, that I have not played in ages, because there are so many really good ones that I want to play, and don't occupy nearly as much time as the sandbox games.
There are still a couple of sandbox games that I play, but only those that have good walkthroughs, so I don't have to wander aimlessly around the landscape, all the while wishing I was playing a game where I could accomplish something in a reasonable timeframe.
I downloaded 3 games today, and skimmed through 2 of them which were new to me, and fairly newly developed. I found neither of the new games to be outstanding, so they go into the 'check later to see if they get better' pile. The 3rd is an old favorite, from one of the 13 developers that I still support on Patreon. That one goes immediately into my 'absolutely must play' pile. Unfortunately, there are already 3 other games in that pile. Plus, I am currently playing 2 other games. So....
So many games... so few hours in the day!