It’s possible to be about both – especially if your measure of quality isn’t limited to “branching the game” or even “changing a stat that eventually branches the game.” 
And even if like me you try to be mostly about those measures of quality, you can still get both quantity and quality. You’re just going to be slooooooooooooooo…
[to be completed in 2028]
That made me burst out a really dirty laugh while trying to take a sip of my cappuccino.
I’d like to make at least one Pokémon fangame someday, but I’m fully aware that I don’t know the first thing about coding games using your traditional coding languages; I know a bit of Python and that’s it. While there are many sources out there to help with it, I do know how to use ChoiceScript, so I decided to create something of a purely textual Pokémon simulator first!
Ambition can only ever succeed if you know what you want and how to get it. I didn’t start by trying to code an entire game with hundreds of Pokémon and moves: I instead started with an explicit simulation that gives you a Level 5 Rattata to fight four other Rattatas. I just needed to get the basic functions, like attacking and tracking health, down first. Even then, I needed to do a lot of debugging. But I set objectives, and whenever I reached the next one, I’d pat myself on the back and call it a day, starting with the next objective the next day at the earliest.
Slowly but surely, and one at a time, I expand the mechanics and features — while forever debugging! — and continue with my list of objectives. Someday, I pretty much will have a fully playable Pokémon game, but with only text instead of all the other bells and whistles. I can focus on developing my understanding of the mechanics while also getting to make dialogue actually relevant.
The point of the above explanation is to illustrate that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but neither is basically any single house. Even something like a conversation needs to be approached with objectives in mind. Doing as Havenstone recommended and not leaving any branches for later is absolutely useful, but if you don’t want to focus on them all, don’t! But do make that an objective, then: complete a conversation branch a day (or in whatever interval works for you).
That way, you won’t get burned out because you don’t feel like you’re obliged to complete the entire conversation in one go.
Err, stealing that. I cannot overstate the potential this has to avert the ton of problems that can arise when trying to write and code extended conversations.
We all know how hours can roll by while you literally just chat with your friends and/or family. So, track that! If an MC wants to spend a day with an RO, maybe something like a three-hour lunch date, get all the niceties and initial descriptions out of the way and then present the starting list of conversation topics. As the MC discusses a chosen topic with the RO, let it continue for as long as you’re willing (and as long as you think a given player can focus on that), wrap it up with something like a general summary of the tangent on which that topic ends, and then go back to the list of topics but mention how much time has passed. You can use a numeric variable to track that and increase it as the conversation continues.
Once the alotted time for the date has passed, either the MC or the RO excuses themselves and then leaves (or the two go somewhere else, etc.). The player will have seen time pass, so they’ll have realised they won’t be able to get to all possible topics and need to prioritise. And that’s okay! On a later date, the topics that weren’t chosen might still be there, and there would also be new topics regarding developments that have occurred in the meantime. (You could even add new topics during a given conversation based on what’s discussed.) This will take a bit more work than just a disable-reuse function, but it works on the same principle.
I always find myself wishing that the “okay, taking a break from the plot; with whom do you hang out?” bits in COG titles were more fleshed out, and this would be a great way to achieve that. You get to add depth, manage your ambition, and provide player agency by letting them choose what to discuss. Wins all around!
Great point! So easy to get overwhelmed by the final goal. Will definitely be drawing small pictures and hopefully won’t even realize when the entire painting is finished. (Will also be a day one download for that Pokemon game, best of luck!)