>>538103957
the game was suppose to be much more laid back, to fit with the "believable" theme.
each fight made the day advance by a quarter. you couldn't skip time unless you went to sleep on the couch / in bed, and even this you couldn't do too often.
"sleeping" at the HIA VR was even explained as them having very good facilities. there's a day of the week cycle, and even a clockboo at random play you can check.
though, it seems even early on the devs knew that would cause trouble. there were types of coffee you could choose, but i think there always was the normal energy coffee as well. there were type of noodles, but there always was the dmg to boss options as well. meaning the devs wanted to offer options, but they knew that people would just want the one most optimal option.

naturally TV mode was meant to be a large part of the game. it's how the story telling was done, it had lots of minigame potential. and it's how people were suppose to spend a fair bit of time, including hunting for achievements. you're a proxy working through a screen, at a shop that rents video tapes, in a game where the currency are tapes. it was meant to be the unique look for zzz. with combat a relatively small part of a much larger puzzle game.
but TV was not well received, the UI was annoying, the puzzles were either too easy or too hard, and it probably didn't make for much a viewing experience either on streaming platforms. not to mention it was nearly impossible to monetize.
so the devs scrambled to remove it. i don't know what the early game is like now, but i suspect there's little to no TV mode in it, and all the rest of TV mode you can just skip with fairy (except for the lost void).

2/3