My nitpicks are coming from the same place as GuyFreely's. We see a lot of good design and story choices in the game, but some are not fully realized yet. And the overall story premise I think works pretty well as far as corruptions game go, it just needs a bit more polish.
on the 20% story/80% corruption thing. Yeah, I'd generally agree with this. As I said before, I think the story needs a minor rework to justify Astrid focusing on her training for a few weeks before she chases after people. People WANT to see how far Astrid is willing to go, so the story should encourage her focusing on training, with some 'urgent quests' being pushed back slightly to allow time for this training to happen. Said quests could hinge on some additional tidbit that Astrid needs to find someone, but that puts her in a 'holding pattern' until that additional piece of information drops.
And, for the love of god (I already covered this), please adjust things so that the grind isn't quite as repetitive. I do get the need to repeat things from time to time, but as I said before I just think that a simple lowering of a few goalpost markers here and there would lend itself well to the story without actually rushing or skipping over anything.
On the 'shame vs outfit' mechanic. The one thing I liked was trying to balance Astrid's arousal. As she's more aroused, she's more willing to take risks with her wardrobe choices. I did manage to get her downstairs at night in her underwear finally, which had an unexpected benefit when when using the chamber pot... but her arousal had to be pretty much maxed, and this was after hours of grinding to push some stats up.
Once Astrid is fully aroused, she becomes more and more upset as time advances if she doesn't deal with it. I liked this, but it wasn't immediately obvious. As GuyFreely said, some sort of indicator of her anger levels throughout the day (besides facial cues) after it is brought up that one time could be helpful. Some items become more effective as her lust increases, while others become less effective. I liked this, but it'd be nice to know if that 'anger dropped a lot' had some sort of number somewhere (even if it's just in a walkthrough/guide), so I knew if I just dropped her anger by 2, 3, or more...
And I understand if developers are trying to play up a bit of mystery here by obfuscating the stat, I get that, but at the very least I think a bit more explanation of the color coding for various tasks might be in order. Once you understand the color coding for tasks (green means she might actually enjoy the experience, darker colors show less willingness), yeah this helps, but again it wasn't immediately obvious to me. I eventually figured this out on my own...
I also think that some sort of indicator of when Astrid might be willing to go with skimpier attire, after she's tried something the first time, would be a time saver. I've went through multiple wardrobe changes on a given day just to figure out what I could get her outside of the inn wearing. The first time makes sense, but after that I'm thinking some sort of 'yeah, I'm not ready to go outside with that outfit' message as she's putting things on, or even better, maybe even color coding the outfit text as Red/Orange/yellow/Green to indicate how far outside of her room she might be willing to go with said outfit at that time could be helpful.
This same color coding could also be used in the washroom, to indicate what she might be willing to exit that room wearing after an encounter...
I'd also love to take some of those school outfits home, and wear them outside of the school, but of course that'd require a bunch of new renders, so I understand the 'lockout' from a design workload standpoint. Still, wearing some of those outfits inside of the school at least could be rather fun...
I'd also love a 'naked' or 'topless' option at the Magic shop. This could be Astrid's way of making mage dude more uncomfortable, in an attempt to gain some sort of minor upper hand over him, and maybe earning a bit of an 'extra tip' as a result , since he's thinking with the wrong head at that point...
On the cash situation, yeah that currently isn't much of an issue for Astrid. We are still in the design stages, so this didn't bother me much, but a lot of the things Astrid needs to do to bump stats also net her cash, so they are complimentary. A few more 'I can either make cash or bump stats' decisions might help reduce her bank account. Astrid does eventually get to use her newly found charm to avoid paying the $200, which opens up a few new events, but there was absolutely no pressure on her beforehand for these events to come up earlier, at least in my playthroughs.
But then, I WANTED Astrid to keep working on the magic shop, because I liked seeing where the spell experiments might lead. People that didn't do the magic shop thing would of course have a cash flow issue pretty much immediately...
Tying in with that...
'Nuff said for now. Still looking forward to future updates