Thank you! That’s a typo in the option gating, and it’ll be fixed next time the game is updated.
You shouldn’t have problems with the text in the game itself (unless you chose to start a Denario romance when the romance option shouldn’t be there!). But if you picked “I’m never interested in romance” and you get any other start/end romance options coming up - or characters flirting with you - just let me know and I’ll fix it too 
I finished my first play through and, man, I’m so obsessed with Denario and his ‘only you understand me’ bad boy vibe. LOL It’s so hard on the 2nd play to not go for him again.
I wish I could marry him at the end.So when I became an elite, I could be like “Ain’t nobody will ever look down on you now, baby” 
Ps: Lord, I just found out that he wasn’t even a choice during beta. Thank you for giving us Denario. 
Btw, congrats and thank you!
Yes, Denario wasn’t originally going to be a fully fledged romance when I was outlining, although once I was doing Chapter 2 and 3 I realised I’d be making a mistake not to go for it 
It wasn’t until fairly late in the writing that I decided to allow romances with both Savarel and Denario - I promised myself I would do it if I had the scope, and it was really nice to be able to do it.
I’m so pleased you enjoyed romancing Denario, thank you for your kind comments!
As someone who romanced both Savarel and Denario, thank you so much for not making me choose!
I finished my first playthrough last night and I just really loved this installment in the series. Honor Bound was such a wonderful evolution of your character writing and gameplay mechanics (also appreciated the end-of-chapter saves). It’s especially fantastic getting to play characters at different stages of their lives, so thank you for that opportunity.
I’m looking forward to replaying and trying some different paths and romances.
Is there an opportunity to start fiore’s romance before chapter 9?
Spoiler answer here: Yes, you can talk to them about romance in Chapter 3, and/or start in Chapter 6.
Oh yeah, thats super obvious in hindsight, my bad
I admit I started the game and my first route was Raffi but I was completely won over by Korzha in the 2nd playthrough.
It’s sweet how it’s a slow burn but you get to call him by his first name felt nice since he’s always so formal up to that point. Also when I did the military choice it’s nice to see they will remain together in the meantime with their new status.
Finished my first playthrough and enjoyed the ride, I’m already planning for several more. “Clandestine Flirtation” achievement was a low hanging fruit when playing as introverted MC romancing Varenn. I wasn’t sure even Varenn noticed those “flirts” 
Slow burn was delicious and Varenn is adorable. To my great surprise my MC even achieved a happy ending, though he managed to alienate everyone except Varenn and Catarina ( and I didn’t even try to have good relationship with her).
Raffi’s puppy eyes are some hazardous weapon: I forced my MC to act out of character
Raffi is upset in chapter 8
My pragmatic non-emotional MC who has cold professional relationship with Raffi: Just let me help you! And I don’t need anything in return!
@Cheshire That’s absolutely delightful, thank you so much! I’m really pleased that you enjoyed it, and the romance.
@winters_socaro That’s awesome that you enjoyed, I greatly appreciated your feedback on early versions, and I’m very glad that you had fun with the full game!
I think they did. But they have too much of a poker face to show it (and weren’t sure how to react).
Haha, I try to allow some happiness on the routes where the PC can alienate everyone! (unless things have gone very drastically wrong, heh)
How exactly are you meant to get honoured? It seems like you’d need high military reputation but mine is at 75 and I’m wondering how much higher it would need to be
I don’t want to post too much detailed spoilers about major stuff as it’s not been out for long (but if people have done it themselves, please feel free to share!) but you need to do something really major that Alva, specifically, is extremely pleased about.
I don’t remember what my stats was (though military reputation was over 70), but
I agreed to work with Varenn, then helped him to cover problems with chemicals (didn’t tell anyone, minimized the damage from leaked chemicals and helped to move barrels away), then when talking to Alva signed papers and accepted the title.
Oh mandriotti won’t do it, makes sense
I must say, I really appreciate the fact that getting the highest honour involves doing the ethically murkiest stuff. Very fitting and realistic.
Ah crap, it’s the same for me. Plus the angst! Ughhh I love the bad boy redemption arc and the childhood friends to lovers trip. But Savarel also keeps distracting me. I am a very judgmental person and I remember happily taking the option where my PC trash talks Denario and warns Savarel about why exactly he is in the predicament he is in now, and Savarel, sweet darling Savarel, reminds us of the ideals of rehabilitative justice and basic human dignity and decency, and I dunno, but it really speaks to that small part of me that wants desperately to return to 2014 when I was pursuing a human rights degree and it really did feel like I might make a difference in the world. So both Savarel and Denario are my weaknesses.
Oh no! I went and googled nonplussed and now I’m scared because language is evolving so quickly and it’s so hard to keep track! It can also mean nonchalant these days?
I think my brain had simply inserted the relevant 'u’s and replaced the unnecessary 'z’s with 's’es when I read anything by you (or Gower) in the past. But the title ‘Honor Bound’ really made me come to terms with the fact that Americanisation is an inexorable force.
Alsooo I love the 95 facts! Not president Faraci and Fabian having a tryst! This is like a Red, White and Royal Blue: Adults Edition story that I need to read.
I wonder what advice Dr Rojas gave to Denario. Was it to keep his nose clean? Or was it to eat more fruits and stay hydrated? It could be so many things!
I love the idea of the game having survival mode. I can only hope this catches on.
@HappyPotato I always love hearing your thoughts on things, it makes me very happy!
Apparently so, especially in the US… I was most nonplussed when I heard about it.
@Hazel I got the idea from the “tortoise mode” from Cakes and Ale It was funny running lots of Random tests to make sure that all the achievements were still possible to get!
I’m going to point out (because I’m an insufferable pedant) that the use of “nonplussed” as a synonym for “nonchalant” is still considered nonstandard, even in American English. I’ve forced myself to come to terms with the fact that there’s little to be done to roll back the tide in such cases - I can’t remember the last time I actually saw “careen” or “disinterest(ed)” used correctly - but I think “nonplussed” is worth fighting for, if only because the nonstandard meaning is so entirely opposite the correct one that there’s some serious potential for confusion there.
(That said, it certainly wouldn’t be unheard of for a nonstandard usage to overwhelm the original meaning of a word so completely that it now formally and correctly means the opposite of what almost nobody remembers it used to mean. Language is obnoxious like that.)
I love how I always end up learning new things from you! I saw this Otherwords video on YouTube which talked about how we have such an easy time understanding Austen because of standardised English and, 200 years from now, our descendants won’t be able to understand our English the same way due to the rapid rise of regional variations, but she framed it as an unfortunate side effect of an otherwise great thing - the world (especially former colonies) moving ahead and reclaiming the language that they had once been forced to learn coercively and making it our own.
And I look forward to seeing what my own weird country does with the language, going forward, especially since we’re so populous now that you guys will keep seeing things like ‘giving’ exams instead of ‘taking’ them, moving forward.
So, in hindsight, it’s kind of a mystery to me why I never got into this series sooner. As the other author who writes “historical fiction, but in a different world” (though a century apart in inspiration, obviously), I probably should have picked up Creme de la Creme when it came out years ago as opposed to just last month. As it turns out, a whole series which centres so much around reputational politics, social engineering, and navigating complex and stratified societal expectations is my jam, and I picked up Honor Bound the day of release.
And oh boy, I had a blast.
Unsurprisingly, I love the setting, I love the worldbuilding. I love how Teran is both less stratified than Westerlin was, but also a lot more hypocritical in the way that it is stratified. I played a stiff-upper-lip “die for his country” type with with no sense of fear, but too much of a sense of duty to do anything but keep his mouth shut and click his heels when his superiors tell him to do something - and it worked for me. It might have worked a little too well, given that I had two-thirds of my base attributes at a place where I could expect to succeed in any challenge that tested them by the last act, but that didn’t stop me from having a good time.
Of course, one of the main strengths is the romance, which is something I’ve always had trouble writing and have always had trouble getting to land right - which is something this does so well. As for the spicy content - well, let’s just say that I’m reaching the point in my current project where I’m getting to work on that, and the sheer amount of options and depth (in more ways than one) on offer makes what I can manage seem comprehensively inadequate.
That being said, I do have to shoo the cat a bit here: there is one aspect that I feel does seem a bit lacking overall: the MC’s place as a professional military officer - and more generally, their place as a professional military officer in a country which is supposed to be heavily militarised (especially since the equivalent societies in our world were more heavily militarised in general).
I could go into detail if needed, but I don’t want it to detract from the fact that I loved this, had a great time with it, and am now contemplating a second run where I don’t find out how much the conscience of a Teranese officer goes for in peacetime.