What annoys me more is the huge worldmap is so exciting and promises the idea of a sprawling adventure with many places to go and we wind up spending almost all of it in a few locations in one town and its adjoining village and woods. With the exception of Rose's storyline we never get to see any of the rest of the world. So that big worldmap feels like a tease.
So does all the stuff with King Sev and the statues of magical women in his study. Will we ever actually learn another magical ability from a lady post-Lana? Devs are being *very* tight lipped about this and my guess is they're realizing they bit off more than they can chew from a programming perspective (possibly more than Ren'Py is even capable of? idk I'm not a coder). After all, if you have multiple magical abilities that unlock from completing different girls' routes, but you still make it possible to skip girls or do their routes in different orders, then you now have to account for different mixes of abilities being "active" on different screens of the game. Ie., let's imagine Lana lets you see ghosts, Madelyn lets you hear people's thoughts, Maple lets you shrink down to fairy size, and Gomira makes you indestructible. The solution to a puzzle is to overhear a guard thinking about how he lost the key to a cell down a furnace grate, then you shrink down to get inside, have to be invulnerable to get past the fires, then navigate a maze using only clues that a ghost of a dead prisoner helpfully gives you. To do this sequence though the game needs to account for what to do if you arrive at the puzzle with ANY possible mixture of these abilities "on" or "off". Ie., you can get as far as shrinking down and getting through the grate but you never fucked Gomira so you're not indestructible and can't pass the flames; the game needs to be able to handle this outcome. So if there are seven girls with abilities to learn that's 7^2 or 49 possible combinations of abilities Lassie might have on any screen of the game. Their response has basically been to drop the "magical abilities from fucking" idea like a rock and not mention it once ever since. (note: there is a way to reduce the complexity here by using a "hub" level design with some girls's routes only "unlocking" after moving the main story along a notch, but devs have so far stuck to their guns that any girl's route can be pursued as soon as you meet her & without completing the main quest.)
The worldmap is huge, sure. But devs said several times (like
here, back in 2020 when the project started) that only the New Capital would be as detailed as the Old Capital is; the rest of the locations will only include a few visitable areas as we saw in Cin Town (we only visited Raventrove there, but there are only 3 more locations we'll visit briefly for other quests). Some of the Old Capital's minor sub-locations (and probably some others out of the city too) will be unlocked in Gomira's quest and won't be visited again for story-related reasons (players will still be able to go there and admire the landscapes or whatever, but that's it). Festives Islands were meant to be visited at some point and then used to host some special-themed content like Christmas or Halloween extra updates, although
this initial plan surely seems a bit unrealistic at this point. The statues at Sev's basement do show all the races existing in the world, and it seems fair to assume the MC will be able to fuck them all, but all that it's actually left is some mermaids and angels (we've been intimate with humans, elves, pixies, demons, and orcresses -well, not yet, but still).
Only certain magical powers (aka Gifts) can be acquired by fucking very specific girls: those who are Gift-carriers, like Lana, Madeline, and Serena (this is actually explained in-game during convos with Serena and Sev). Maple is just a regular pixie with ordinary pixie magic which works like a curse, not a Gift, so the MC won't be able to shrink himself at will; and Gomira has no magic at all, she's just an average orc. Devs are not that tight-lipped about these powers the MC will eventually get: they have stated several times that there are some more Gifted girls but none of them have been introduced yet, and that those Gifted girls will only be fucked sequentially during the main story segments - so the MC won't be learning Gifts from side-quest chicks, if only to make the main story somewhat coherent.
Of course, having or not those Gifts will change some side quests. We've already seen how having the ghost-eye can alter Myrtle's quest a bit (when Rose contacts her dead husband, a couple of pics and dialog lines change if the MC has already 'learned' that gift from Lana). But it's basically the same with any other colliding side quests. For instance, you can't steal Myrtle's clothes you need for the main quest if she's staying home because she's been attacked by the wolf in her quest, and her reaction when you finally steal it is very different if you've already completed her quest. Or, if you're looking for some advice on how to heal a pixie but Serena's gone missing, you can ask Sev instead. Some random convos also change depending on whether the MC has already met Lord Hammerdick or not, and things like that. There are many more examples of this, and it sure takes time to adjust every little detail. Which is what this polishing (and debugging) phase is for.
The 'hub' you mention is already in place: you can't actually start Rose's quest unless the MC has gone to the dungeon and came back, met Celestina, and paid at least one glue to Rose; and we won't be able to start Gomira's quest unless we've learned her name (at least) during Lana's main story arc. So this statement - 'devs have so far stuck to their guns that any girl's route can be pursued as soon as you meet her' it's not accurate at all.
