Could you talk about a game element you were really excited for but ended up having to be cut from a game of yours?
There was originally another character in WKTD but I've already talked about that. HWBM originally had a much more complex faction system; I wanted something that felt meaningful and interesting and nuanced and didn't end up with anything resembling that. So I made everything a lot more specific and clear and it ended up better for it. As a sole writer, the idea of writing a bunch of content people won't see just to give them a fake impression of their choices mattering is such a bad effort/payoff ratio that I'm glad I abandoned trying to make the choices interesting and instead just focused on the characters and story. I think even an extremely simple system can feel really huge and complex to players who don't know what I know, and that ends up conveying the meaning I was going for even if the gameplay is kind of fake. Gameplay is fake anyways, don't believe the lies.
I'm currently working on a bunch of features that I am absolutely going to have to cut, but I'm having fun so it's worth it, to me.
