obviously still far into the future, but do you have any thoughts on how the player would go about initiating the poly routes purely from a game design perspective? would it be compatible with the current format of the chapter 4 decision, you think, or would you plan for a different way to introduce them? just curious about the behind the scenes work!
Great question!
I've thought about this off and on, and I think what it would amount to is adding a LOT of extra scenes for each polyam pairing up to Chapter 4 and doing midway relationship checks.
So for example, if the player has a certain amount of points with both X and A, somewhere in Chapter 3 I'd insert a choice where the player can determine whether they're interested in only one of them, or in both of them. If both, that would flag the possibility to unlock the polyam choice where instead of A or X's names only showing separately at the end of Chapter Four, there'd be an extra option stating 'A and X' together to choose the polyam route.
But again, it would require adding a LOT more content for any polyam options starting as early as Chapter 1, so Chapter 1 - 4 would have even more variety and branches than they do now!
Not to mention the polyam routes themselves past Chapter 4 would also need their own scenes because of how much it would change the dynamic and relationship progression. I wouldn't want to reuse any scenes from the solo routes, a polyam route would really be its own unique thing!
Which is why I'll probably start adding the polyam routes one by one after the solo routes are finished instead of working on them at the same time haha.
