I don't want you to feed bad about it, it's not a specific thing but rather a compounding of things at once. It's actually more of an assist to me with specifics versus generalizations, as that makes it ten times worse with trying to figure out why. It's not a big deal, but what I meant is that if I felt 0.4 was a big downgrade in my own eyes, that would likely tell me it's time to consider doing something else. I knew there would also be some challenge with two protagonists, but the game would not exist without Olivia, as that is the part of the game most for me. I mean, it makes sense as it's kind of myself in a way. Maybe more femdom devs are subs and love 100% sub decisions/branches, but I am the complete opposite and even a male dom path was not enough for me, I needed a female dom choice path to enjoy writing the game at all. I don't know, maybe in the end more submissively minded people can do this kind of game better.
Two separate people took this post and another one after yours (about multiple protagonists) and showed them to me. I'm also getting shown detailed financial metrics over months/years about which femdom games (the top 40 femdom games on Graphtreon) do well financially and which do not, and why with very detailed specifics about style, plot, fetishes, etc. The basic crux behind all of that is I am being pressured by a few around me that want me to move to my second game idea and their primary argument is that femdom games of this style (you can see others like ED as another example) will never do well because of the nature of the femdom audience and what they actually pay for... (when you look at the very successful ones with femdom the style is completely different) I am getting relentlessly pounded with the idea recently that this kind of audience just doesn't pay for a certain style of content versus another audience that does, etc. I believe I have 175 Patrons which sounds ok to me, but they are also showing me how many Patrons even objectively crappy games more like my second idea are getting month after month.
It is mostly well meaning from people that feel I can make a lot more doing another game, but that's not the whole story. I am not caving to this pressure as I basically try and do whatever I want in life, but it has made it less fun for me. But I don't want people fearing I would stop anything due to outside factors -- only I would make that decision. The only fact they have showed me so far that does make me feel down sometimes is seeing how much I am actually making per hour of work on the game. But as long as it's fun, that hasn't been a huge deal. But I at least need the help of my artist now here and there, I really rely on her with little things now to keep my primary business ok with life/time balance.
But I don't want people to worry about the game that way, I have nothing planned at all negatively in that regard. But I can't lie and say I feel the exact same way as I did during 0.3 (my favorite time making the game was during 0.3) with 0.4 right now. But it's not the game itself as the reason why, it's the constant outside voices telling me I'm turning down a better thing and that this audience talks the most and gives the least kind of thing, etc. (0.4 is getting kind of close, did an update on public Patreon post)
Anyway, sorry for the rant/long post. I feel better now, lol.