Thanks for such a detailed post! I appreciate things like this more than you know, it helps me decide what direction to take things and what needs fixing.
1. The gossip system is both what I think gives the game the biggest difference compared to what others in the genre offer IMO, but it is also INSANELY time consuming. Just one character gossiping about another is 100 unique lines of dialogue. It needs so much attention for accuracy, that I've made it a point to slowly correct issues. The real challenge is since I've made most of the gossip lines in the first versions of the game, the characters have different/ much more defined personalities, to where a lot of the gossip lines need tweaking. I've take the approach to where I'll hyper focus on one character to update/add to their content. Lily is actually next on the list, so expect her content to see some big updates!
The gossip system is actually the sole reason I haven't added any other Housemates yet; When the time comes for me to add Harper, I'll need to create 1000 unique gossip lines; 100 from each other girl towards Harper, and 500 total for Harper alone. I want to do quality over quantity, so that'll take me some time. And when I finally decide to add a 7th, that'll be 12,000...
2. Creating more antagonistic characters is definitely a focus for me. Soemone mentioned to me a while back that everyone seems to just be on board with it, and I realized I needed to create more conflict. I'll definitely be doing more of that in the future.
3. The school was a dangerous for me, since it opens up so many possibilities that I've needed to hold off on until I'm ready lol. It's the exact reason the mall hasn't opened yet. There's many more characters planned, but I wanted to start and get through the volleyball team/harper's story before splitting off and leaving too many things unfinished!
Work is going to be pretty calm for a bit (90% sure, I never know) so I plan on taking advantage of that time to both clean up content that needs updating as I continue to add!