About difficulty


Briefly

— Why is it so difficult to get to good endings?

— That was the plan.

More detailed

Perhaps we didn't make this point clear enough earlier, but we deliberately made Degraman a difficult game where everything doesn't come down to choosing "Jack or John".

A "difficult visual novel" in our understanding is a novel where:

  1. Sometimes the player has to adjust to the nature of the love interest. Not all of them are ready to accept any player's choice
  2. Endings are determined based on a large chain of choices
  3. Happy endings (where everyone is happy and alive) should be hard for the player to get, and this of course should be plot-based
  4. The player has not only pleasant emotions from only good endings

About point 2. We have spent a lot of time and effort specifically on this point. It means that there is no one choice that determines the fate of the character (although there may always be the last straw). And it also means that we have tried very hard to make sure that there are no choices in the game that do not affect anything at all.

Every developer of a visual novel is balancing between two poles. Let's say there are 100 choices in the game:

  • In a difficult pole, the player needs to choose the right option in all 100 choices in order to get to a good ending. In this case, the game will be absurdly difficult
  • In a simple pole, the player needs to make only 1 (any, not a specific) correct choice. In this case, the game will be very easy, and at the same time getting to the "bad" ending will turn into a challenge

Each developer chooses for himself the right balance between these poles. Our deliberate choice was to be closer to the difficult pole, but we tried to do it without extreme.

---

Perhaps not everyone expects difficulties from otome game. However, we, in fact, began to make Degraman, because we ourselves lacked a dark otome with a complex plot.

We are really sorry if the game did not meet your expectations, however, this is not a bug, but a feature.

P.S. However, we admit that in the future we can correct the logic of choosing endings, but we would like it to be within some reasonable limits, without drastic changes.

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Comments

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(+1)

Ive been following on patreon since the demo hooked me and am now playing this first act on steam and loving the experience!
Having played so many fluffy & easy otomes a gritty, complex and often ruinous story is so thoroughly engaging, and given the complexity of the plot and characters it feels very right that its difficult if that makes sense?
All this to say if others are complaining about the difficulty please dont take it to heart! from the demo to now this project is very much everything i could have dreamed of and im so excited to fully explore the world and characters you guys are building and im sure so many of us following agree.
Thankyou for your hard work

Thank you! Thank you for all your kind words, support.

This comment for some days is warming our hearts :3