... to get back on topic, some additional impression to my post a few pages back.
I think I saw most of the content now (or very nearly all, if you exclude alternative content, and stuff like "go around make everyone pregnant"). As is usual with these types of games the content got "less dense" to further I got along; right, in the beginning, chances are you'll have something to do in the morning, the afternoon, the evening, often even multiple events and you'll have to decide which to tackle first, plus you want to train stats and money. At the end there's a lot of bits where there's only one single thing left to do and you have to wait with nothing really to occupy you for it to happen ...
Obviously this depends on how you play the game. There's probably some that first max their stats and sit down to grind (or cheat) 100,000 moneyz and then progression for the game will be different than someone who perhaps does all of one route first and then the next, or somebody who deliberately only wants to the main quest first (or perhaps deliberately keep it to the end).
I'd say I played "normally" without any sort of deep plan; I trained stats when I had extra time or needed to to advance a story, I made money when I had nothing else to do or needed to to advance a story.
That meant that a big chunk of the main story got delayed a long time since the 5000$/10000$ cars are huge hurdles (plus waiting for the pregnancy) while all the other routes don't require anything too extreme.
Now one of the things the game does is keep the writing and the branches very simple - nearly everything happens independently from whatever else you are doing. Which for the most part is fine, although occasionally I'd say some bits are a bit jarring. But for the main story I really thought it was ridiculous at times; esp. the first bit with Iwanka - the reactions of the main character and his friend would have made sense at the beginning of the game, but really not at that stage anymore. And again, it makes the main story sorta that thing that happens at the end of the content and generally it doesn't feel like it necessarily should be that way.
I don't have any particular genius suggestions for this - obv you could lower the hurdles or increase money made, but the cost already feels low (btw - the beach house should be more expensive ...) and the income is already fairly high for everything else. So my none-genius suggestions are the following:
a) Fishing is useless and awful, but the evening slot generally has least events and other options, so allow an upgrade for night fishing so you can fish in the evening (and possibly get additional tries for more fish). That'd give it some niche use at least.
b) Streaming and the barn could give a small passive income. So even if you don't actively do them, depending on how far you got into those routes, they'd give a small extra bit every week. Heck, the characters involved even talk about how they'll share profits, it's just that ingame it's only "for doing it right now", it could easily be taken as "once a week you get a small share of the profits for your help" (on top).
I don't think either would fundamentally change too much but add up to a bit of extra cash over the time of the game so that perhaps the "buy new pizza delivery vehicles (and solely for the purpose of pizza delivery)" (which is of course critical to solving the criminal conspiracy of the city ... somehow) becomes less giant obstacles and more in sight of the player.
As for the story ... eh, I don't really know; not sure what I was expecting. I guess it was okay on balance; some things, eh, not the biggest fan maybe, but whatever.
I think I saw most of the content now (or very nearly all, if you exclude alternative content, and stuff like "go around make everyone pregnant"). As is usual with these types of games the content got "less dense" to further I got along; right, in the beginning, chances are you'll have something to do in the morning, the afternoon, the evening, often even multiple events and you'll have to decide which to tackle first, plus you want to train stats and money. At the end there's a lot of bits where there's only one single thing left to do and you have to wait with nothing really to occupy you for it to happen ...
Obviously this depends on how you play the game. There's probably some that first max their stats and sit down to grind (or cheat) 100,000 moneyz and then progression for the game will be different than someone who perhaps does all of one route first and then the next, or somebody who deliberately only wants to the main quest first (or perhaps deliberately keep it to the end).
I'd say I played "normally" without any sort of deep plan; I trained stats when I had extra time or needed to to advance a story, I made money when I had nothing else to do or needed to to advance a story.
That meant that a big chunk of the main story got delayed a long time since the 5000$/10000$ cars are huge hurdles (plus waiting for the pregnancy) while all the other routes don't require anything too extreme.
Now one of the things the game does is keep the writing and the branches very simple - nearly everything happens independently from whatever else you are doing. Which for the most part is fine, although occasionally I'd say some bits are a bit jarring. But for the main story I really thought it was ridiculous at times; esp. the first bit with Iwanka - the reactions of the main character and his friend would have made sense at the beginning of the game, but really not at that stage anymore. And again, it makes the main story sorta that thing that happens at the end of the content and generally it doesn't feel like it necessarily should be that way.
I don't have any particular genius suggestions for this - obv you could lower the hurdles or increase money made, but the cost already feels low (btw - the beach house should be more expensive ...) and the income is already fairly high for everything else. So my none-genius suggestions are the following:
a) Fishing is useless and awful, but the evening slot generally has least events and other options, so allow an upgrade for night fishing so you can fish in the evening (and possibly get additional tries for more fish). That'd give it some niche use at least.
b) Streaming and the barn could give a small passive income. So even if you don't actively do them, depending on how far you got into those routes, they'd give a small extra bit every week. Heck, the characters involved even talk about how they'll share profits, it's just that ingame it's only "for doing it right now", it could easily be taken as "once a week you get a small share of the profits for your help" (on top).
I don't think either would fundamentally change too much but add up to a bit of extra cash over the time of the game so that perhaps the "buy new pizza delivery vehicles (and solely for the purpose of pizza delivery)" (which is of course critical to solving the criminal conspiracy of the city ... somehow) becomes less giant obstacles and more in sight of the player.
As for the story ... eh, I don't really know; not sure what I was expecting. I guess it was okay on balance; some things, eh, not the biggest fan maybe, but whatever.
