I guess this was what broke my save from the first release? I just want to say, you are not making a simple VN that we can fast forward through. You have heavy freeroam and sandbox gameplay that we have to meticulously play through to try and end up in the same state we had before the saves broke. Once or twice early on in development is understandable to some degree, but really try to plan your routes, variables, and flags ahead so it doesn't keep happening, dude.
As for me, just this once is enough. I've dealt with constant save breaks in long sandbox games enough to know I can't be bothered anymore.
I totally get your frustration. I would be, too.
The game is like a carpet: you use it as a whole object when really it’s made of interwoven threads.
Asking me to update the code without breaking previous saves is like
asking me to pull a single thread without affecting the rest of the carpet. It’s not possible.
Neither can I plan which variables and flags will be necessary in a game of this complexity (with nested loops within loops and miles-long elsif statements) because I cannot fix a problem until I’ve created it.
This is why v0.06 has a disclaimer before the game starts:
This game is in development. Previous saves may not work with future version.
When I first uploaded this game, I did so without the [VN] tag, so that players don’t expect my updates to be a simple episode-by-episode addition of renders and branching menu options. Unfortunately a moderator added the tag on their own.
I’ll cite your post when I request that they remove the tag. By now it should be clear that it’s a sandbox game with visual novel elements, not a visual novel with sandbox elements.
And, since I’m on the topic, I wanted to note that I make save-breaking updates because I listen to complaints and feedback from players to the make gameplay better which each version.
I don’t want the quality of v0.15 to be limited by some stupid variable I set during v0.07.
