Agreed, man
Having to choose between Felicity-Emma and Kali-Lucia, eventhough Lucia isn't a canon is so damn difficult
With Felicity and Emma, for me it's easy, Emma is the girlfriend/wife material, and Felicity is our pet kitty.
I did not realize Lucy was not canon, that's disappointing, the two of them in a 3-way would be fun, screwing one while the other watches is fun, and just watching them banter is fun. She is like an alternate reality version of Kali, just adorable. And her I was hoping to give her the last empty room and start repairing the next floor, though the two of them sleeping together while I watch on the camera is fun too.
Kali I love, she was a good example of a tsundere done well.
Firstly, I hope you give Ashley another chance. You may begin to like her beginning in v0.6, and possibly even more in v0.7.
Things aren't necessarily tied to Ashley's story, but the characters are, sort of. For instance, for Maria to join, you have to do Ashley's story. For you to continue Ashley and Maria's story, you have to get them both to a certain friendship to continue the story.
At one point, certain sex actions did increase affection. I removed that due to balancing. There is also a difference between someone being a slut, and someone being your slut. I don't want to date any slutty girls, but if a girl were to be slutty for me, and only me? I'd like to get down and dirty with her.
Maria's bug has been fixed. She also doesn't say the tip things (all I've noticed anyway).
I will also change afternoon to evening. I think that sounds better.
As for all the other things you've mentioned... Egh, listen, no game will be perfect, and I do understand people will find problems, no matter how small the problems are... But those are some very niche problems. I don't really want to go back and redo the story for the 2% of people who finished the Twin's story before they started Ashley's, it's just work I could allocate into a new event. I think it's fairly obviously to a player that you're supposed to play through Ashley's story, and if you don't want to, that's fine. But you should expect a little bit of inconsistency if you skip things.
The shower stuff with Emma obviously haven't been touched on yet, as well as Felicity. I just added those shower scenes, you know? The game is far from being done, and far from being fully polished. I will go back to the earlier points of the game and remake, or even add new things, like new story in between story. The story you play right now may be entirely different in v0.21 for example. Right now, Kali asks for Sex soon after you have a blowjob from her, like within days. I'm obviously (to me anyway) going to add events in between those two. I wouldn't expect you to expect that from me though, typically devs don't care about the earlier parts of their games, so your worries are justified.
With Ashley, it's hard, I am trying, but almost every trait she has is one that tics off a cringy 'nope' in my book, she displays almost every pet peeve I have. Maybe if she goes back to her natural hair color (or anything else) and starts being a decent person, but that is about the only way I can reconsider her as someone I want to be around. If the option were there, I would have called the cops on her and kicked her out a long time ago. Rape, assault and possibly battery, death threats, breaking and entering, etc... Maybe some of that isn't a crime in this world, but I figure if raping an elf slave against her will is a crime, then doing it to the player should be too.
I do plan to do her story, I am trying to keep her affection low, and her slut and exhibition high, to treat her as badly as she treated me and others, though it is a challenge since many events are tied to her affection score, when it might feel more natural to have it to slut, exhibition, or 'friendship'.
Maria's story is tied to hers pretty strongly in a few places as you said, and with the Twins, it either should be, or it ought to have a variation in the dialogue for if the player has already started a relationship with them. It's disconcerting to have them act as if they don't know you, when they both have the love trait for you by that point.
(see below)
I am not trying to tell you how to do your game, I'm not complaining, I totally understand underdevelopment, just pointing things out and making suggestions, take it for what it's worth, no skin off my nose. I'm not bitching, and I don't think less of you and your work because of any of it. Some of it I expect you to get to, some you may have forgotten, who knows? I was just trying to be helpful, not flame you.
If by balancing, you mean having to continue to grind dates when there are lots of far more interesting things to do, then yeah, it does mess that up, maybe if you got to pick what act was at the end of the date,
that would go a long way to making it easier.
Not sure what other balancing you could mean there...
Making it feel less repetitive and grindy is a good thing. Don't do it on the early ones, like Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, and Boob jobs would be slut only, unless that girl is particularly fond of them, like with Emma it is fulfilling a fantasy of hers. Whereas giving her a screaming orgasm ought to give you both. This is just my opinion, but the others I bounced the idea off of seemed to think it worked as well.
That is my point, in my mind, a girl who has a slut stat higher than her affection stat, would be into taking any cock that comes her way, where the other way around she is a slut only for me. That is why I am trying to keep their affection/obedience score higher than their sluttiness, but it is hard when there are so few actions that raise it, but most others raise sluttiness. It took me week of grinding dates with Kali to get her affection high enough over her sluttiness to grind her anal skill, and I don't like having to disappoint her and avoid sex in a sex game, to keep her liking me enough, if that makes sense.
Maybe I forgot playing some stuff, but I loaded my save from several versions back and all of a sudden several new girls all showed up, the twins and the bible beater, so of course I started to work on them. How would I know they were supposed to be after Ashley's story to make sense? By this point I had not finished anyone's stories. I also had no idea the shower scenes with them were that new either, 0.4.3 was the last one I played, and I didn't complete it at the time, the grind had gotten to me and I had needed a break, so came back for this one.
I understand not wanting to go back, going back to old work is hard, I hate reading my old stuff. I was hoping to suggest ways to fix that without too much hassle, but there is never an easy way really.
There is a fine line between a good story with a good build up, and making the player wait forever for the sex scenes too. I agree that BJ to sex is a bit fast, but I have had sex on first dates many times in my life, so... One suggestion I have is that as well as boobjobs, you could add an event of the playing going down on her. The only example I have seen so far is the femdom event with the android, which I am not fond of, why can't we do it just for fun?
For Kali, the one that seemed too quick, was the sex in the cafe, while I loved that scene, it just seemed to unlock a bit soon. Maybe it was because I had already ground a lot of points before that in the old version though. Hard to say with out starting over, and I don't have enough time for that right now, sorry to say.
Please, don't think I am complaining, I want you to know that (with one notable exception, and most games have at least one character or thing I don't like) I really am enjoying the game. No game is perfect, since perfection is subjective, and we will never all agree, all we can do is the bet we can, and try to iron out any plot holes there might be. In any non-linear game like this, you have to assume that not everyone is going to do things in the same order that they were released, and having variations for that adds to the replayability of a game. As a writer, editor, or continuity expert, these are things help the story flow better.
Thank you for the game, and again, I really have grown to love it since I got past the beginning.
I think you're misunderstanding what canon is. Canon means not real, or not true to the story. Lucia is aboslutely apart of the story, whereas Violet isn't. I think you're meaning Lucia isn't a main character, which is true.
That is very good news, I had hoped that was the case, she was adorable. I look forward to seeing more of her.
...also be interesting to see what became of Sophia from the intro.
