Firstly, on the subject of sequels, I will repost my thoughts from the WIP thread.
Heh, what is to be done with it remains to be seen. NPT is certainly designed to be part of a series. An indefinite one, potentially. At this point there’s three options.
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It doesn’t sell particularly well. It was a big personal win just to write a story I have tried, in a dizzying variety of formats ranging from webcomics to video games to conventional novels, to create for well over a decade. If one is all I get, I’m OK. So if it poops the bed from an economic standpoint, the series is probably dead. Or at least comatose.
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It sells decent. If the sales are solid but unremarkable, I will likely wait until after The Parenting Simulator is released and see how it does. To the victor goes the first spot for a sequel.
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The populace proves that they have more money than taste and NPT is a hit. Parenting is too far in to bail on now, but if Toaster works out really well, I will move on to NPT 2: The Hoard as my next project instead of Parenting 2 or TriviArena. I might even do a short prequel set between the Clysms called A Sterling Reputation to tie it all together as well.
To add to that, the advantage of having lived with a story for thirteen years is that ideas for continuation are not a problem. The Salian arc would be three (cliche, I know, but it’s hard to avoid the simplicity of the number). The Hoard would take things to a gigantic hidden storehouse of pre-Clysm technology that also serves as a colony for the workers and squatters therein, and deal with a struggle for power by different factions using figureheads. You would be able to spend a lot more time choosing your side, instead of just at the end. The third one would finally take you to space for a large-scale conflict.
After that I define the arcs by their antagonists, and have at least two more big bads sketched out already (though each of those might be as short as a single story). Possibly three if I decide to allow for time travel.
As for the negative reviews, some are valid and some are not. I will echo what literally dozens of authors here have said in some variation or another over the years: the main thing eliciting the negative reviews is something stated upfront in the description, so it begs the question why people download it anyhow and get mad when they could just avoid it entirely. There is no secret about having preset protagonists. And I anticipated some blowback for it even though it means the people buying this story ironically seem to have trouble reading, given that their premade identities are revealed in the front page description. The Parenting Simulator has a custom MC for this very reason (well, and because it made more sense in that context since you won’t interact with MCs as NPCs in other playthroughs like here)
Now, people who don’t like my sense of humor (or lack thereof), who find the world empty and the characters flat, those are valid opinions and while I hope they’re not they are not the majority, it at least gives me food for thought going forward.
In short, hustlertwo used Wall of Text! It’s not very effective…