ryg88 thanks for such thorough feedback, it means a lot.
Just played the online version on itch.io:
Hope that the dev has already outlined the entire story of the game. Knowing the ending (or endings) and the penultimate scenarios leading to it (or those) will probably help lower the chances of the game being abandoned. Plus, having a skeleton outline of the entire thing even before the first code is written helps a lot.
I have an outline, but I intend to keep this burning for as long as it makes sense and as long as it's interesting for you to play and for me to write.
I have tons of ideas, scenarios, and endings drafted already.
If it comes to abandonment, I'll do my best to wrap it up in a meaningful whole and bring at least one ending to it before that happens, but of course, life can be unpredictable.
As for the UI stuff, hopefully there will be a save system in the future. Even if there will be no branching paths, being able to save at any point will be useful. Maybe the different saves can also be located in the settings app for easy access. Many will probably appreciate a lot of save slots.
Aside from the save, a rollback or undo button would also be useful as well, especially as a remedy for accidental clicks and backtracking. (Among Unity-based phone games, this is usually not very common. Two of the few games that have it are Corrupting Mia and NTS Honeymoon.)
Plus, if the story will be more or less linear, an app where the chapters are listed could be useful for repeat play-throughs. This helps players jump into a particular chapter w/o having to use up a save or start from the beginning.
There is a save button in the top right of the chat window, and the game autosaves each time you hit back. I'll add custom saves in time, but since it's mostly linear at the moment, it didn't feel important now.
Rollback/undo is a bit trickier, as rolling back doesn't roll back the variable changes so it would mess up the game logic. I will, however, add chapter selection, and maybe a branching map so you can see where to roll back if you want to try another variation. I also mentioned that I'll add a re-spec screen where you can manually change the variables if you want a specific outcome that would otherwise be unavailable.
As for the pictures, it's good that the pics received by the MC are automatically in the gallery, but it doesn't seem to be the case with pics sent by the MC himself (ex. the pic of the book at the start doesn't appear in the gallery). With the gallery itself, hopefully there is a "persistent" gallery mode available in the future so that players can collect all their pics from multiple play-throughs w/o losing the pics after playing a different route or making different choices. Another is the ability go from one image to another in the gallery thru swiping (or clicking the left or right sides of the pics) w/o having to minimize the current pic in order to go to the next pic.
Hmmm.. I'll check that out. I didn't notice that MC's pics don't appear in the gallery.
The persistent gallery will be possible when I implement the chapter selection. I think it would actually be harder to make a non-persistent gallery for that feature.
As for the messaging app, trying to switch from one chat to another by just clicking on the notification instead of having to leave the person's chat and go to the other person's chat manually would probably be better. Plus, while having a fast-forward button is great, it would also be useful to have a "fast-forward during no-choice/single responses" kind of thing, where the player doesn't have to click on the MC's messages if there is no choice involved. (This helps especially on repeated play-throughs.)
Clicking on notifications is a feature I started implementing but didn't finish. It's coming soon.
I could probably implement that. I actually forced all player responses to be choices, so you don't get hit by a wall of text that you can't follow - hence the < say nothing > choices - they are there to allow you to read everything before proceeding.
Some games have the "Skip seen" option which fast forwards until a new line. We'll see if I manage to do this. I'll try.
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As for the story, not sure how it will unfold:
- A linear story w/o branches and w/ one ending. Here, the choices simply lead to different dialogue and pictures but no major change in story or characterization. (See Corrupting Mia)
- A mostly linear story w/ a branching point somewhere along the line, leading to different endings. This is usually where there are hidden variables in the choices that lead to different routes after the branching point. (Ex. certain choices increase the assertiveness or submissiveness of the MC.) Another type is where the combination of choices lead to different routes after the branching point. (See A Promise Best Left Unkept)
- A branching story where choices lead to different routes and may also have hidden variables too. There are multiple endings too. (See NTR Mobile and Phone Story)
For a newbie developer, choice 3 and even choice 2 will eventually blow up development time since there's just so much to write for multiple routes.
I'm currently aiming at a simplified 2/3 variation, but as I currently don't want to 'blow up development,' as you said, I'll keep it simple - more for flavor than as actual parallel storylines. I might add complete routes at some point, but that's not my goal for now.
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As for the characters:
- Leo (MC) sounds like the typical blank-slate character present in many VNs. Newbie guy from the suburbs or the boonies who gets to work in the big city. Not really a naive prude, given that he almost jumps at sexing the FMC and agrees to moving in with her.
Well, he is very naive, but he's also unbelievably hot for Amy, and since this is a sex game, of course he'll agree to everything, or else we'd have 4 updates without any real action.
Again, thanks for your time, feedback, and suggestions. I'll add it all to my feature and ideas list and try to do as much of it as possible in the future updates.
