The state and future of Volatile Gases

So what's going on with Volatile Gases? Well it all stems back to that twitter post I made in august. Having been tying up the game and trying to get a playable version available, I came to realize that what I had wasn't good. A combination of poor planning and sunk-cost fallacy, not to mention lack of a prototype, led to something which I cannot in good faith publish. So I decided to begin reworking Volatile Gases down to its core, all to try and figure out what I could do to make it good.

This has led me to rethink nearly all aspects of it, like ditching the side-scrolling view for something top down, and toning down the survival aspects for something more exploratory. The big thing I've been mulling over is whether to forgo the action-y gameplay you've all seen so far, for something more turn-based. Now, I want it to be clear that I'm *not* talking about the usual rpg-maker jrpg style, think more the roguelike style of Elona, Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode, and CDDA. I feel like such a style would allow me to go way more in depth with the kind of interactions you can do, which I feel are important so I can push the fetish-porn side of Volatile Gases more, and just in general make a more in-depth game. There are a lot of limitations, and hurdles that come with making a fluid real-time game, and implementing the kind of complex actions that would allow you to, as an example, grope and sniff a character, are anything but trivial. I presume this is why so many porn games are turn based to begin with.

This is a pretty major departure from what I've shown, and I'm posting this here first because I suspect most of you feel invested in the development of this game, so if you've got any thoughts or opinions regarding the passage above, then please share them. I'm also working on a teeny-tiny playable prototype to better showcase what I have in mind, video showcases simply don't cut it.

Thank you for your support and patience.