So a few things in disorder:
- About Marc, he was always immature and not a real dom, it always was about posturing and acting up like he saw his father do or like he saw in some porn flicks, his notions of dom are more about the sexual domination and humiliation than anything else, the psychology of it goes for above his head. Don't forget that characters are not all omniscient and can be simply stupid and wrong, and before you go over the "yes but other characters are like that in the game", yes others are like that for nearly the same reasons, because they are stupid or because they don't have the notion of what a good dom and sub are supposed to be, if you want some more psychological domination, it'll come with the two characters Nubia and Charles, with Nubia it was already seen, with Charles it's in coming.
- For the neighbor, not everyone has to be a mastermind to be a vilain, and as you said, yes he is immature in his insults and behavior, there is no thoughts behind his machinations (meaning real planning). It was only hinted and not specifically said, but the old pervert doesn't have all his marbles anymore, and this whole situation is more of the ghost of what it could have been when he had all his capabilities, which is why everything crumbles when Myriam or Bill confront him. (Little trivia in passing, the old pervert neighbor was inspired by a very real old man by the way, an horrible old shit I knew who took pleasure in insulting and having the worst behavior possible to destabilize you, having his fun at your expense, honestly, good thing he's dead.)
- For the too much branching, can't agree more, but from the start this was the goal, not to have too much of course but to have a lot. I always was very honest on the experimental side of Project Myriam, and has I often said, it's my first game and I'm learning with every steps. Not that it's an excuse for anything, it's an explanation, I needed to see the limit of what I could do, how much road you can launch, how much characters you can add, how much branching, etc... It's simply interesting data for me, next games will definitely be written another way.
- For the fatigue, again, I agree, honestly, it's been three years on Project Myriam, and there is probably around a few years to go I think, best approximation would be two, I love Project Myriam but I want to work on other ideas too, as a big RPG tabletop guy, I yearn for some more "fantasiesque" settings, be it medfan, scifi, cyber, super, etc... But there is one thing I promise to myself and people who support me it's to finish Project Myriam first, and I will, it's necessary to prove that I can finish what I have started, that I am capable to get a project to its end and not drop it mid way.
- So to conclude on the two previous points, as I keep writing the game and push the development, I'm slowly starting to close some plot lines and trying to focus more on the important ones, some ideas hinted will probably not be touched as well, it's necessary to advance or the game will simply keep growing and would not take a few years but decades which is simply impossible.
Here you go, I hope it helps. ^^
To conclude again, always keep in mind that it's a first game and very experimental, some times I'm simply trying things out to see if it'll work, and some times the answer is "no, better luck next time". The game is full of errors and could be better, I won't pretend otherwise, it would be foolish, but honestly, I never thought in my wildest dreams when I started this game that it would get to this proportion, that it would get so much support, Project Myriam far exceeded my expectations and I learned (and keep learning) a lot with it, and for that I have to thanks the amazing support I had, which both gave me the motivation to work and the freedom to do so. So trial and errors be damn, I'll be finishing up this game and hope that people will keep enjoying the adventure. ^^
(A little thing in passing post second conclusion, one of the big thing I want to experiment on is the endings, since the start of the game I wanted to bring a multiple endings to it, based on choices and stats, and will be dedicating a full chapter on it, which should probably take a year just in itself.
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Yes, the drop was because she doesn't enjoy the situation of course, and the stat changes for this update were most around psychology than kinks, that's all.
Most of the answer can be gleaned from the one to Power Broker, but I'll just add, no, I'm not going the multiple kinks way to attract people, since the start, and you can go look if you wish, I always said it was a bit like a shotgun blast, as a first game I wanted to experiment on a lot of levels, the kinks were one of them, I wanted to explore a lot of kinks, some that I like, some less so.
For the deadline remark, can't argue that it's stressful some times, but it's also a good motivation to work consistently.