*Hello! And a (spoilery) review of Common Grounds

Thanks for the review! 🙂

That’s a good point about ‘leisure’ and ‘fun’. The naming of lesiure in particular I was never happy with, but kind of settled on to keep things moving. And definitely need to improve the graphics for the next one, especially the ‘fun bits’.

The player’s character seems like a difficult thing to get right in dating sims. Think you’re right that they need their own character and growth as one, as mutes or blank canvas characters never do it for me. At the same time, have these design notes to hit, like the ending.

What I’d like to see is a post-dating phase, so the game doesn’t end when you settle on a relationship. Just need to figure out when and how the game would end. Wouldn’t want it to be anti-climatic, like “You were able to maintain a relationship for X weeks! Congratulations!!” haha, maybe have it based on character-specific plot.

We actually had a couple polyamorous options, but had to throw them out due to the graphical work being such a nightmare. But have moved on to better software, so it won’t be a problem next time.