August 3 Development Log: Weekly Updates, Story Comprehension, Pacing

I now do "Weekly Updates" on Patreon. I noticed with my Dev Logs that I was providing news freely to the public - which I wanted, but it negates the one key benefit that paid supporters get.

So my "Weekly Updates" will have more in-depth detail on upcoming scenes. "Dev Logs" will remain mostly rants and thoughts.

On that note, I've been working on story comprehension. This means--as we say in novel-writing--"Kill your darlings".

Unnecessary details are removed. Dialogue has been rearranged. Some plot points are subtlety mentioned again for emphasis. This won't help everybody, since this isn't exactly a "MC gets dropped off at his first day of college" story, but it should help a lot of people.

In an effort to improve pacing, I polled players on playtime, but it didn't tell me much. It was too evenly distributed, with some players completing the content in less than 15 minutes, to others taking almost an hour. I'll be trying other methods instead to give me more an accuracy perspective on pacing.

I'm considering an optional 'send feedback' button in-game. A report can be generated with a click of a button. It'd tell me which choices you made, how long it took you to read the story , etc. You could then post it on my Discord in exchange for exclusive renders.