You clearly have not played his games, there are several different orders in which you can tackle the characters and their events, yes to change chapter you have to unlock everything, but you do it in the order you want, which is the definition of sandbox
Let me qoute you "yes to change chapter you have to unlock everything".
Which means you agree that unless you have dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's that the dev wants you to at the time and place he wants you to there is no progression to the next chapter.
Furthermore there is no meaningful choice to be made because you don't have a choice in whom or how to corrupt/seduce or not.
Please explain to me how this means that it isn't strictly linear.
I won't hold my breath for your debunking.
I played RFR. There is no game, there is hardly a comprehensible story.
I played some of MBFD. There is no game, there is even less of a comprehensible story.
You disagree? Then please tell me what the agency is of the different characters involved?
I think you'll see it comes down to : MC wants to bed everything that is female and the females have as much personality as a cheap blowup sex doll.
The only choices you have in either of the previous games is which room will you mindlessly visit for the 726th time in the hope to get a smidgen of progress in the story and if you happen to visit it on the wrong moment you'll undo the progress you made in the last couple of in game days/weeks. (as proof play RFR with the mod by Nighttrain, where you can see your progress or loss of progress depending on the action you take).
For his second game he decide to put in a walkthrough system of sorts (which was barely an improvement but at least it have some hints) and now he decide to rip it out the game and only have it available to paying members. Considering that the mod that Nighttrain made for RFR was far superior to the system that the dev made for MBFD... if I was a paying member I would ask if he was pulling my leg.
Too make it perfectly clear, I like a slow burn and teasing but there has to be a sense of progression that doesn't feel arbitrary. Something that this dev doesn't comprehend.
E.G.: hug her = creep unless you hug her at time z while in location y and repeat this x times at undisclosed intervals that you just have to guess at. This describes the action in both RFR and MBFD.
If you can refute my arguments with facts instead of statements and feelings then I'm all ears.
My advice, if you don't want to wear out your mouse, or mousepad, spend your time and money on something else until this dev has proven that he can actually make and finish a product.
Oh and that he stops reusing the same female model over and over and over again.