I'll try to be efficient in how to explain this given you haven't been on the server or likely been exposed to anything still in the Patreon version:
1. Canonical means part of the story. That's it. Everything in the game is canonical because of how the time looping works. There's no way to really stress that in-game without exacerbating the already existing problems of my pre-edit script. While the story descend on a finality of a particular romance should not invalidate the others as it took those to get here.
2. Looping back to Day 20 doesn't work. Ignoring that we have a sequel where we need a locked in romance or at the very least lock out certain romances, we're dooming certain people to still die. Namely Roswell because of his illness. The medicine at this point doesn't work on him because of actions he takes on Day 4, so any intervention needs to happen before then.
3. As for why Dave, I have plans to fix that when I remove the Oswin interrogation segment in favor of explaining how quantum mechanics works a bit better. Namely the concept of observance which might help clarify why Dave at all, why Thanatos dying solves things, etc. My concern with this is ending up just like C/Ping a Wikipedia article and the delivery feels dry.
-- Also there were talks in the Discord last night again as to how to potentially integrate inputting the final password in Path P to round out the player experience but so far no one (myself included) hasn't come up with a way that makes sense where Dave would know the password.
I guess the thing that I should make clearer in-game is that the mansion is just a means to constrain the boundaries of the test rather than try and keep tabs on everyone over a town. It might be something I can throw into the revised Oswin section, but the idea is that once the experiment is over and Roswell is cured, we don't need the mansion holiday anymore.
1. It took the other romances to get there, sure, but then it's all erased for the final bit. No one else but Dave remembers it happening, which is the problem. Perhaps canon isn't the right word for the situation, but it has the same effect for everyone that isn't Dave. That's the central issue I have with it.
2. It wasn't a perfect suggestion, I was just throwing out potential alternatives. It's your story and your sequel to write, I was sure you already had plans for things. Saying the medicine doesn't work because of what Roswell does on day 4, sure, but... why? That kinda feels like a "just because" situation.
3. No comments on this bit, you have plans/desire to adjust things so that's good there.
As for the mansion, sure, I understand that. It's just a real bad feeling that, like that reddit comment said, all the character growth and relationship development just disappears once the experiment concludes. I don't think something like that could ever feel good to the reader. Your time investment doesn't matter except for saving Roswell, and even then both Roswell and Dave are mentally worse for the experience. (Besides the whole, Roswell being actually alive thing, which yeah is important). Sure, you can argue that it does still matter for you, personally, since it did happen for the reader but... I just don't know. I don't know what else to say at this point.
1. Which... would mean everyone should remember? In the current state not even Tyson remembers, this is about as even as we're going to get.
2. Because he goes and doses himself with something that warps his immune system which now makes the medicine a mismatch. I could write that in to be more explicit but I worry that a lot of solutions that equate to "just have someone explain it somewhere" is going to make the wordiness problem worse.
I wonder how much of this problem exists because public demo doesn't have access to the epilogues yet. Though it's hard to gauge just how well received those are too. It feels like I'm being disrespectful to adopt a "If the message of the game didn't resonate with you, there's nothing I can do" mentality; and I'm hesitant to stick to that as my defense.
Shy of a ZTD style ending where everyone remembers everything and comes out of it with a complete character arc into questioning why their affections haven't been reciprocated mess, I don't think there's any better solution I could've taken. Epilogues cover Dave trying to expedite the character arc healing process but he's Dave, so it doesn't go well.
1. I mean, ideally, it would all be written in a way where everything over the course of the game ends up mattering for that specific route, and then the ending is the ideal solution the experiment set out to do. That way you can pair Dave up with whoever you want, and everyone benefits from the character development and growth. There's no way to do it if you go back to a start that's both before anything happened and after everything has happened. And yeah, I understand that everything *does* matter, and you don't want the mansion vacation to happen if it doesn't need to happen. So, fixing Roswell means that no one has to go there in the future timelines/loops and so it's a problem that simply can't be reconciled with how the game is now. It would take heavy adjusting, probably far too involved at this point and with how long you've spent on it already, sooo... idk.
2. It still just feels like it's something that happens "just because" to block anyone from fixing him after the start. If Roswell knows about things and the potential for things then his actions don't make sense to me. And if he can learn from his actions in the same way, can't he just learn *not* to do that thing?
I can't really comment on the epilogues situation since, like I said, I haven't played any of them. Maybe it does make things better. Also, I'm not trying to be disrespectful in my responses either. I get this is picking at something you've spent a lot of time and effort on. You've worked it all out, you've already planned a sequel and have epilogues and all that stuff. You're gonna have people who think it's a genius move and you're gonna have people (like me) that just don't like it. I think it's fine, and I personally do love time loopy things. Zero Escape is in my top favorite game series. It's just a big sore point looking back on all the other routes and then the true ending being... what it is, and I know I keep pointing back to it but it's just the disappearance of the character development that really kills it for me.
Oh, you're being plenty respectful. I'm just trying to figure out if there's a way to potentially tweak something to make it better without just saying "Sorry, what you're after would take another year of development in rewrites to make it cohesive".
I think if this is the sort of thing you're looking for in an experience, then MAYBE the epilogues solve for this. I went in expecting that my way out of this narrative was to conclude things in a way similar to the game Time Hollow, which may or may not have been a smart move, but without introducing a whole slew of additional concepts (looking at you Uchikoshi) I'm suck wondering if there's a solution at all.
Yeah, unfortunately, it would just take far too much time to rework it when you already have something done. This is part of the reason I debated just not posting about it to begin with, but since Timbear said something similar (also sorry Timbear for hijacking your post ^^;) I decided to go ahead with it. I never really expected anything to come out of it, and I can't see any easy, quick solutions myself.
I've never played Time Hollow, so I can't say on that part. I will wait and see how the epilogues play out, though. I had an overall great time with your game, and wish you the best for the full release.