Got some qurestions of my own if that's alright. You're rather popular on here and it's not hard to see why given how communicative you've been and the show of work at a regular pace on top of releases.
On the topic of player agency as a whole:
1.) The story so far has been linear. At least in the sense of there being routes to choose from and go down based off player choice. Along the way are opportunities for sex should the player choose it as well. But as far as i could tell, i do not believe that sex has explicitly been the mechanism for deciding your path through the game. But there have been some opportunities for it which fit more then others. Namely, the slave path and new mage fail summon path to say a few. Going forward, are you going to keep the current way of progession as mentioned above? Or have you given thought to potentially shaping the route based off of how you conduct your nightly business? Ex. Sarah trying to return after the aforementioned fail summon, but there being enough opportunities to corrupt her so that the choice of returning is no longer an option?
So this is definitely a balancing act. Most often, it is the story choices that define the context in which Sarah exists, and then within the context, characters/encounters that make sense. A big part of that is because I generally want players to be able to experience the big storylines on their own terms.
So if a player says Sarah is a lesbian, then they should be able to play her as such, and not miss out on main story. As a result, usually it is the story-choices that define the story, rather than the sexual encounters. The reason is that if I do it the other way around, I might write a really fun/cool chapter with Sarah x Samayra, but any player who wants to play her straight, would miss out on that part of the story, or vice/versa.
Now of course, I do want choices in partners to reflect back on the story, but only partially. For the most part, everyone should be able to experience the main-story, and then have Sarah move through that in whatever sexual-fasion they like. Some exceptions exist, like Sarah x Varga is always exclusively monogamous, but that's because that's explicitly the fantasy that it leans into.
1a.) Given how freely Sarah can choose her partners, would restricting this due to the above be a decision you'd be in favor of making? This already happens in the princess route with who begins the civil war. so can we look forward to more?
Sometimes restrictions make sense, but restrictions also bring along with them a lot of additional writing and coding, which is already something I hope to try and keep a bit in check, just because I want to keep the story manageable.
2.) Will there be any impact to ostricizing people as you go along storywise? And by that, i don't mean just no sleeping with them. Killing kate in the mage route, killing the barbarian messenger, or executing the blue knight in the princess route? Where they might be able to help in the future but not if you kill them.
Definitely, and the Barbarian messenger is a good example. If you let him live, he'll come and save you, and becomes a romanceable character in the future. If you don't save him, nobody comes to Sarah's rescue, but you end up meeting other potential characters, like The Old Soldier.
3.) Piggybacking off of 1.) I think you said that all routes will generally lead to the same place somewhere here. The mage route update gave a hint to that seemingly. Thus, a single ending is in the cards. But just how many do you plan on making? To elaborate, you could make a specific ending to every route where the outcome is shaped by how sarah navigated the world.
The main stories are going to have about 3/4 really big different endings. And within those endings, there will be a lot of sub-variety as well, so for example, let us say "Sarah Happy" ending, you might have a Sarah x Varga happy end, or a Sarah x Atilla happy end, or a Sarah x Samayra happy end. But then also, of course, further modulating the ending for choices made during the story.
So if Sarah makes a lot of cynical choices, she might end up as a very cynical person. But if she makes a lot of kind-hearted choices, she ends up more kind-hearted.
So in the end, the stories end up in a few different ways, and within each of those, there will be a lot of variety to reflect a players playthrough. And of course, each of the routes will feel quite different in their ending. A Mage-Sarah will be totally different from a Warrior-Sarah or a Princess-Sarah.
And then finally, all the non-major routes, like Sarah being taken by the Tribes, will have their own very different endings.
3a.) Just how much variance are your sexual partners/escapades going to play a role in these or how you get there if any? Ex. Simping for Carolyn throughout the princess route until you are a ruler in name but otherwise defer to her for everything vs. Trying to strike up a more mutual arrangement after getting the sense whipped into you as per their last interaction but she remains an advisor only.
This is one way in which I do hope to let the sexual scenes influence and effect the story.
So a Sarah that has a relationship with Carolyn, might become a lot more submissive in her behavior, than one who has a happy relationship with Varga.
But it will only affect the story in small ways, because as I mentioned before, I never really want to lock people out of parts of the story that they're on.
Hope that clears some of this up.
