Look, I'm just responding to the reality here. Taking roughly 15 months since the last major update- assuming it releases soon- speaks for itself. So does a dev who complains about the number of scenes he has to rerender due to branching.
That was not a complaint. It was an explanation why he doesn't post more frequent status updates: they'd be identical. He was not remotely complaining about the scene. Here's what he actually said:
One reason I don't do more frequent progress updates is I feel I'd be repeating myself with this specific update because I'm having to make so many versions of the same scene. Such is branching.
So, again, not a complaint. I'm fairly sure at this point that he
likes making the scene variations specifically
because they represent the game reacting to the decisions of the player/MC. (Also, scene variations are inherently easier to make than new scenes, because the map is already done.)
Also, those scene variations are more often about "has the MC had sexual contact with the girls involved in the scene? in what combination?" than they are about the "three paths".
One of the things that makes this game take so much longer than a lot of others has nothing to do with paths, and everything to do with Atem hating static faces. He makes almost every line have a different render, so that the people who are talking appear to be talking, and have appropriate expressions based on the conversation (and the conversation that has led up to that point). That's why it's more complex than most. Like, I love Cosy Cafe, but none of Cosy's characters ever open their mouths at all, and a lot of conversations have relatively static expressions throughout. There are a lot of other games, including some I like, where most conversations just alternate a render of each speaker with their mouth open when they talk, but only use those same two renders for the whole conversation. Neither of these are things Atem will ever do.
I don't know how objective you can be given that you seem to be part of the development team in some way.
Nope, just a fan who's chatted with Atem a lot, and helped him out with discreet opinions on WIP content a few times.
But if people in the thread are "harping on" about the the three paths, it's because we have all seen a multitude of good/great games get abandoned because of overly ambitious goals, especially among 1st-time devs...
And that doesn't stop people from being wrong, as I've demonstrated multiple times.
If you want a KN, this won't ever be one. If you want only "harem: yes/no" and "hide lesbian content" choices? This won't ever be that, either. There are a lot of good games that qualify for both of those, and I've just gotten tired of the doomsaying that's cropped up recently in this thread. If you doubt the game, just move on and don't support it. It's really that simple. But the arguments that people keep making about assigning blame to specific developer decisions are pure speculation not borne out by anything Atem has said or done.
Anyway. I'd rather see people talk about the actual game content itself here instead, so I'm done cluttering up the thread with this topic.
I'd be happy to, for example, explain why the game isn't larger in file size despite the staggering number of renders. It's not due to compression.
