Hi Joeschwartz, and welcome to the forum!Joeschwartz wrote: ↑Sun Dec 20, 2020 8:53 amI do agree with Mosky that it would feel to forced and limiting for players to only have one path on their first playthrough.
I suspect a bit of miscommunication here from me, although it doesn't change the general point that you are making. If I choose this route, I certainly wouldn't limit the first playthrough to just one path. Instead, I would limit the first playthrough to any of the standard paths. Elite paths would open based on knowledge gain. that means five paths per love interest would be open from the start of the game, assuming the full game has been released.
It might be that some of the confusion was that I said when I re-release the game by episode, the episodes will by released by path instead of by scene, which would lead through the full game story faster and narrower in the early episodes. Meaning the possibility of seeing endgame of day 7 for one path by Episode 7 or 8 instead of barely getting to the evening of Day 2 on Episode 8 for the original version. There would be player participation on which paths are continued though.
If I did lock elite and corrupt paths, I would give a notification that a new path was unlocked. I'm leaning against the locking method at this point, especially after the great points Moksys and Joeschwartz made. I might just put a notice at the beginning of the game about the intended design but encouraging play in their own style.