The art matters quite a bit. I can't say in general what I like, as it depends game to game. The biggest part is I have to like the character designs, if I don't like how the characters look than what is the point. But I can like many things, from DAZ and other 3D to hand drawn western or anime...
Most of the time I will wait and end up picking games up on a sale. But the main reason I don't generally buy them at launch is just that I don't have the time to play all of them so I just add them to my queue without buying them. And by the time I want to play them I can find a good sale (or I...
Interactivity and gameplay are good. So if that counts as grind then some is acceptable if done well. But if it requires hours of repetitive or tedious gameplay then I'll drop it.
If the story and characters are good then I prefer slower, so things can develop more naturally. Going too quick can just skip a lot of interesting stuff (and in some genres can remove most of the point). Though occasionally it can make sense and work well to move quickly.
However I do...
I generally read the game. I'll only skip read text when replaying sections or alternate routes.
If it's not that good I'll skim or read quickly. But if I'm going to skip the text entirely I'll just drop the game. No point in it if I don't care about the story.
I generally will tolerate some annoying parts if I like the rest, but if it gets too much all together then I've dropped a number of games. Though there are also games that I can't point to what made me drop them, sometimes just overall meh, but also sometimes they don't vibe with me even though...
Yes. I have a large amount of games on steam I've never played. Especially from back with Humble Bundles and such, but some were direct purchases during steam sales. Fortunately I don't add to it that much anymore. Sales are generally reliable, so now I won't buy a game unless I am going to play...
So far as I know it is because of the payment processors or possibly Visa/Mastercard/Amex themselves. They have total control of the financial systems so they impose what they want to.
It can work. But generally it seems to constrain the story in weird ways, since the dev is limited to images and video that already exist.
If anything it just seems old and outdated at this point.
Generally Ren'Py is fine. Though it has it's limitations and people seem to like to push it.
I'm not that into RPG Maker. But if it is good enough I'll play it as long as it isn't grindy. Or if it is niche enough and meets what I'm looking for, though I tend to drop them more frequently.
Another solution would be the ability to block tags. That would also allow it to work for more than just Abandoned games.
I don't know how possible that would be with the current forum system though.
Kobald Adventure was nice. Although it was always the type of game that would never be complete. Or only have a few routes completed. But for some reason I liked it.