I've been looking at the first chapter, and I realize that I've missed listing beats for a critical part of the story - and that's the survivors. Rather, I haven't put in any nodes that explain what the survivors do. But I've also realized that there's a huge potential for a secondary arc - and that's taking care of a survivor personally.
How the survivors make it is during the first chapter is going to be critical for the rest of the story. Perhaps not exactly directly - more like they will set the stage as to how populated the rest of the world will be. The more you try to save people, the more people there will be to interact with.
Although this is a branching narrative style of game story, there will be sections that have elements of sandbox gameplay. As in, you'll get to explore the town, do small tasks, grow, and so on. And I plan to have most of them be completely optional.
I'm also rolling around the idea of having your hometown be malleable. As in, when you meet the various survivors on your journey, you can potentially persuade them to move to your hometown, where they can survive and thrive. There's a nugget of profundity there that I would like to explore further down - I just don't have any concrete ideas on how to meld this idea with the themes quite yet.
Anyway, more soon. I've been out of power for the past few days and need to catch up to reorganizing Chapter Two.
