u4ia is more like a game than Leap of Faith, and will consist of three types of 'modes'. Each chapter will consist of all these three modes at different stages of the episode.
1. Path mode
In path mode, you choose your path through the current scene. Different events take place as you move forward through the scene. In short, moving from 'A' to 'B' (or 'start' to 'finish' depending on the scene), you choose your path along the way, and who to interact with. They play out like a normal visual novel but are designed to give you great choice in who to spend time with or what to do. Meaning, exiting a path mode will differ greatly depending on your choices. Due to this, it's impossible to see all content in one or two playthroughs.
2. Free roam
In free roam, you can move around as much as you like until you've completed one or several required tasks, or the time runs out. Do note that "time runs out" doesn't mean you have to be fast (in real-time), but there's a certain amount of things you can do before something happens, giving you a chance to plan things out.
3. Story mode
In the story mode parts, you experience the story first and foremost. This is the same as you did in Leap of Faith with conversations, story reveals, cutscenes, etc. Story mode has fewer choices, but does differ depending on your earlier choices.
When finishing a path mode event, or a free roam, you can save it with the choices you just used to play through it. That means you can re-play the story at a later time in full story mode with your earlier choices intact. A 'create your own story' of sorts.There are 12 girls in the story. Four of them are important, four less important, and four of them, well, without revealing too much, you will have to choose at some point.
For u4ia I wanted to give you the freedom to choose perks that will customize your gameplay. These talent points (or perks) will allow you to tone down things you aren't interested in, or bring more focus to the things you are interested in.
This way, if you play the game several times for different outcomes, the actual game will feel more different. And even if you only play it once, you can still shape the Main Character or game to your liking. It also gives me the freedom to design different variations of the scenes.
u4ia is still very much a story-based game, but I want to include elements that make it more of a game rather than a kinetic story.
point me to the game overview
Looking through dev diaries for it now ...