Lessons Learned In My First Game

After completing my first published game The Princess And The Tower, here is what I would do differently the next time.
Experienced devs will probably tell me that is "Captain Obvious" stuff, but I wished I had done it from the start in my first game.

Some facts

• Game style was a point and click adventure (NSFW) with some minigames / strategy elements
• The game was a renpy game, but  mostly written directly in python (70%)
• Did not count the code, but probably 20.000 lines of code and 10.000 lines of renpy dialogue
•  It was a single person project and I spent about 700 hours on it for 7 months or so (was kind of a holiday project)
• Art was done with Blender, DAZ and Photoshop.  
• Sounds/music I used available assets. 
• It was released in 7 monthly releases with incremental content updates.

What I will do better from the start next time

• Proper Art Asset Management (in SDE and in game folders):  "OCD-ish" naming convention for all dev files and finished assets, properly structured subfolders and asset "house cleaning" every month or so. At the end I couldn't find assets, had inconsistencies across 3D character and item files and also only one flat in-game folder with a zillion image files.
• Quest System I: Use a state based quest system from the start, high quest granularity, "auto-update" layer that runs through the state machines and quest DB instead ofrelying to kick off individual quest transitions in the code. Also use the state transitions to autofill quest / help logs and direct control flow. Introduced that from V0.7, had to rewrite the old crappy quest code for weeks and wish I'd done that from the start.
• Quest System II: Bundle all quest data objects (which include title, quest help text, trigger and completion conditions)  in a single file, so I  can "write" the quest logic  in one single location and not lose track
• Grinding/Convenience:  Consider players with no beforehand game knowledge / replay experience and make quick progression not so dependent on game experience. Maybe add some redundant pointers to dialogues to push new players in the right direction
• Appeal/Accessability:  More "visual" aids for the NSFW appeal (not everyone can run scenes 'in his/her' head). And of course more animations are always welcome.
• Game Flow: When doing multiple endings, plan them properly, make sure there is no interweaving of endgame quest-lines or secret items that unlock endings without mentioning them. This was quite messy for endings two and three and also the cause for a bunch of softlocks, player frustration and the need for bugfixversion (which was 0.9c), etc.  

What went well and I'll do it again

• CRM: OCD-ish state based CRQ list (any excel list will do, ...) with target version planning, effort estimates, CRQ-state
• Testing: Find interested and capable  Beta Testers, which help greatly in meeting deadlines
• Planning: "Release date first", postpone content elements to next update if schedule would slip
• Staggered release (beta testers -> patreon power users -> all patreon users ->public) to not be flooded with feedback & bugs
• Story: Focus on few characters rather than a large bunch of forgettable randos
• Feedback: Collect feedback on dev sites to content & features. Sites I used for that were F95Zone, itch.io and of course Patreon, definitely worth engaging there with the community

Maybe there is more, but this is what came to mind.

I published the game to force myself to finish something and not leave it 20% done (as my previous non published stuff) and move on to the next thing. That part worked :)

Thanks to everyone for feedback to the game and suggestions!