Heya Zuri,
Thanks for checking in and I'm glad the game stood out from such a large website here. The search function around here is also pretty hard to navigate too so I'm glad you stumbled across me however that may have happened.
That being said, I take criticism pretty well and most of the limitations I've had with this story could probably be summarized as inexperience and budget. All of the things you've noted are things that I've either considered or are aware of. Since you took some time to write a lengthy post, I'll do the same for a response. A lot of the "decision" type stuff was something that I slowly moved away from because of organizational problems. When you're mapping these VNs out, choices and the variables can quickly get out of hand. For example, a few years ago, I was trying to do the poker scene and I had every hand have a winner and loser, that alone quickly branched out to like 60 different paths in one scene. It was insane. I'll also admit that my concentration is absolute garbage. If you spent any time in the Discord or talked with me on voicechat, you'd see how quickly I can derail myself. So because of that, I made the conscious decision to limit the choices to a number that I could handle. I decided I'd have less choices and try to do those routes right rather than have choices everywhere and just lose focus on everything. That being said, I plan on doing a revamp based on what I've learned and there will likely be some things added in if I have the budget and time to do it. So we'll see. But yeah... you're totally right. The choices are limited here.
2. Running in circles. So that part is likely going to be fixed on the revamp. The reason that plays out like that is this game started in 2017 and the majority of the adult games were grind-based. You had skill points that you had to grind up by doing the same events over and over and then eventually unlock the next tier. That required more coding skill and to be honest, I'm pretty awful at that so I slowly just moved away from it. I tried to quick fix the beginning but it's still pretty bad to the point that I can't even play it anymore. So I want the story to be more linear like it is post-chapter 3 (I think that's when the circles stopped).
3. Empty school. This one is kinda funny and I'll make fun of myself. Truth is that the reason the school is empty is because of computer issues. When I started, I could only render one model at a time in the screens mostly. That lasted until a *spoiler hint here * certain park scene with motion. After that, I was able to upgrade the computer system I have based on Patreon donations and after that scene, you noticeably see a little more detail. over time, I gradually was able to add more people in until hit about 5 max. Which brings me to the current rig. I now have a new computer based on Patreon donations and I can get about 10 people in and maybe more. The tradeoff is that it takes hours to position all those for every shot so it does slow down production but it looks better. We'll likely see more students in the school during the revamp. In fact, there's a sarcastic dialogue line in the game somewhere where I have one of the characters say that sometimes it feels like they're the only students there--- that's me totally busting myself out :p
4. Dialogue is all me except Blayke, my co-writer wrote the scene in the car where they're driving to a sandy location. If you spent 5 minutes talking to me, you'd know where that dialogue came from, lol. I write exactly like I talk :P
