Devlog: Time and Progress

Hello, everyone! It's time for the monthly devlog. This time, I don't have one specific topic I want to discuss, so I'll just talk a little about everything related to the game's development.

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Secondary and Main Characters:
I’ve been doing what I mentioned in previous devlogs—using the main character routes to introduce other characters and creating quests centered around them. Even though I ran some polls beforehand, I was a bit worried that people might not like other characters taking time away from the main routes. However, it seems like the majority enjoyed it, and I haven’t heard any complaints, which makes me feel more relieved and confident about presenting more characters in the future.

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Main Quest and Time:
In the last few updates, I've been focusing heavily on character routes, delivering three quests at once in each update. This is good because it allows me to progress the story as I envisioned, but the downside is that it’s taking too much time away from other aspects of the game. For example, the main quest has been paused for a while, and I haven't had time to develop new mechanics that need testing, like the cellphone system, which is also on hold due to coding issues, and the level 2 shops.

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Thinking of a Solution:
I’ll probably need to decrease the amount of content in the main character routes to make time for other areas of the game. I just need to adjust how I think about content and quests. I have this habit of wanting to resolve a problem within the same update. For instance, Luna's new quest was supposed to end the night Emily had a panic attack, but it felt wrong to stop there, so I wrote the spa quest as a conclusion. Looking back, it wouldn’t have been wrong to end sooner and focus on extra content. So, I need to either lose this habit or start planning quests differently.

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Time for Each Update:
I know some people have suggested that I take my time to add everything I want in each update, but I’ve found that releasing one update each month works best for me. If I go beyond that, I start feeling really anxious, and it’s not the productive kind of anxious. So, I just need to make it work within this time frame.

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Thanks for reading this rant and for being here. I’m not too worried because these problems aren’t too complicated to solve. As long as people are interested in the game, I can keep going. See you all soon, and take care