itch.io

First, thanks so much for the wonderfully thoughtful comment!! Never apologize for writing walls of text, especially one filled with praise, I love seeing it 💖💖💖

To answer your question, I think a lot of the reactivity you mention noticing in the game has to do with two things, at least for me: writing pace, and prioritization.

I can only speak for my own writing process, but there's a certain flow to my writing that works best when I can go long stretches of time without being interrupted. It helps me focus and immerse myself in the scene, which generally allows me to visualize my writing and makes me more productive as a result. In an IF, however, having to write and code choices and different branching scenes and routes are all interruptions.

The more time I spend on inserting choices, the less progressive writing I'm doing, and the less I feel like I'm progressing with the story because I'm stuck on a single scene writing 6 different variations for it. That's why, realistically, as a single person working on this IF I can't insert a wide range of choices, or even regular choices for dialogue, because that would absolutely kill my writing flow. Even if I only wrote one choice and continued on, backtracking to write out the other choices is exhausting.

There are IFs who give regular choices for dialogue scenes, however, but these tend to have no (or very little) overall impact on the story. I love writing flavor as much as the next person, but personally this kind of choice-system frustrates me. More often than not, a writer who uses a lot of smaller choices has less time/energy to spend on writing larger, more consequential variations. As a result, I often end up feeling like my choices never matter. That's also where prioritization comes in.

By not spending as much time on conversation choices, but rather plot, relationship, or MC character building choices, I can focus more on writing variations that actually matter. It's still tiring to write the same scene in 6 different ways, but it feels so much more rewarding to me because I know I'm writing a variation that actually impacts the story and shapes it for each individual player.

I think with the MC's character traits in particular and the variations related to that, it's easier for me because I'm a very character-focused writer. Character building and development is what I do best, so writing different variations for different personalities isn't that difficult to do for me. Adding traits that intersect with each other also gives a more specific flavor to a Crown's behavior. For example, a blunt/cautious Crown will address the nobility differently from a blunt/adventurous Crown, and especially so from a charming/adventurous Crown. That way you can create added layers of personality to what is otherwise a very straightforward system.

I hope this gives you a little more insight, and helps with your own writing!!