I wonder how many times Sel has read people’s ending theories, and they ended up being right or close to it, and he was like “SHIT!” and changed it so as to avoid embarrassment…
He's gonna ruin his game if he does this. You can't foreshadow something and then change it when people follow the clues. There's decent clues in chapter 1 that could end up as reasonable points to hit for an ending and it'd be a shame to find out those were all wrong so they could subvert your expectations like Game of Thrones season 8.
What you do instead is once people get it decently right, you add misdirection to make them believe it's something else without outright saying the old theory was wrong.
I've brought these up before but in Steven Universe, 'Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond' was guessed very early in the show once the concept of Diamonds was theorized, long before we saw an actual Diamond. Then they added the story Garnet told about Rose shattering Pink Diamond so people started theorizing again, even though true believers were right about saying her story wasn't proof. And later on, it was proven to be a false perspective as the shattering was a forgery.
Before Steven Universe, we had Naruto and how Tobi was fingered as Obito soon after his introduction. Then after Sasuke's backstory came to pass and his brother was dead. Tobi self identified as Madara Uchiha, long lost clan head and ninja so powerful his mere name caused the rest of the ninja villages to unite for war. Then years later as part of the war, the real Madara Uchiha was 'revived' and he looked identical to the statue we saw years ago which called Tobi's identity into question again. Months later it was revealed to be Obito (weekly updates for scale).
This is an important tangent because...
Selly has already said since the beginning of the game that he hates coma/dream/simulation theories, he said that this is for weak writers.
You have to point out why people hate them though. Normally dreams / simulations are just cop-out explanations to dismiss story that's been happening for a long time (like retconning seasons of a tv show like the first time it happened)
I've given a scenario where we could call it a dream or a simulation, but functionally you could rename Kumon-Mi to Hokkaido or some other actual japanese city and then say time is actually being frozen and reset.
The only rammifications is the expense of the situation instead, now time travel and manipulation is a real thing in this situation and that pointless major physics breaking reality is something that needs to be dealt with (Like if the loop is broken, why can't Sensei control time afterwards? why would he go back to a perverted life with Maya when he could literally control the world and never have to experience trauma again with that power?) At the very least, taking that power so he can't ever lose Maya again.
Nothing about it being a simulation means the girls have to be fake, but it provides a cheaper explanation of why their memories can be manipulated, how murdered girls can be killed and revived, how memories can both be lost and recovered, why memories can be viewed rather than recalled. Why we can see weird shit like characters floating in midair, or copies of the same person can appear in the same location, or why the world breaking looks and sound like computer glitches. Sensei and most of the girls can be real, just pulled into a sandbox to be toyed with all for whatever the purpose of the simulation is without having to actually risk the lives of the girls.
It also provides a great way to make the idea that 'Maya isn't real' a reality (Nakayamas too in my opinion) by granting the ability to insert fake characters that can interact with the real characters. Or gives them plausibie deniability by reframing them not as humans but as something else (Angels imo).
And as pointed out, it provides great ways to conceptalize the alternate timelines and 'dimensions'. Terminals being stacked on top of each other can reflect servers being stacked vertically in a server rack. It also can explain other mechanics like affection points and how administrators can grant and remove points at will.
Characters speaking weird gibberish can be much more easily explained by it being a simulation that people aren't necesarily speaking with voice, not that they'd realise or anything until a happy event or something. Or are we saying Sara really said in real life "dfsi9gujwer0tigf08rhgwrgfdfoudbhjvdiofjgwpodfsdfwfwefwt. And erfguhw3r8rgfqsehfdvgwdfwpgfug." Or is that all of a sudden a video game thing we have to just accept but a simulation / dream is too much?
Dismissing all of that because Selebus said "since the beginning of the game that he hates coma/dream/simulation theories" is potentially swallowing the misinformation again. Has he hard line said "It's not a simulation" and even if he did, would you put it past him to go back on his word in the effort of throwing off theorycrafters?
