I could see it being doable. Move the conversation about the job being down to you/Felixity/outside candidate to AFTER the Gabriella interview and just give the player the option to say “Look,. I really appreciate being considered for the position but after some consideration I feel like I have more to learn before I’m ready for the responsibility”. It allows the player to still feel accomplished, rather than feeling like they’ve failed, while still letting them see the other route.
EDIT:
I’m willing to be corrected on this (because it’s possible I just haven’t seen it yet), but I feel like the game missed out on some really interesting moral dilemmas. There was a lot of fuss made about Platinum not being allowed to hire escorts for their clients, but we never really had to confront that? We never had a client ask us to get them a prostitute and then have to make a decision whether to prioritize the client’s desires with corporate policy and the law.
In fact I would have liked to have seen more points of contention between client desires and corporate policy. There was some in wanting Ax to spend more money, but I feel like it wasn’t fully fleshed out. I feel it would have been more interesting if Platt was a lot more mercenary and unlikeable, creating a point of conflict between the player trying to do right by their clients and Platt pushing them to drain more and more of their wealth.
It’s not in Platt’s best interest to be too aggressive about getting clients to spend money. His clients appreciate feeling a concierge has anticipated their needs, but they’re not going to let themselves be pressured. Say what you will about the ethics of billionaires, you don’t get to be one by being spineless and stupid. If word got out that Platinum was “draining” clients of their money rather than making intelligent recommendations about goods and services to enhance their clients’ lives, he’d be ruined. So even if Platt were a total amoral asshole, he probably wouldn’t run his business any differently than he is.
I do think more could have been done with the question of hiring escorts, though. It’s definitely something clients would ask concierges to arrange under the table - and what about more or less respectable escort services that offer companionship to events but not sexual services? What about places where prostitution is legal? What about things that fall under the general category of sex work without involving actual paid sexual contact, like a stripper or dominatrix?
Yeah, you can definitely make that argument about Platt, but even in the areas where there was conflict it didn’t really seem to matter (or at least it didn’t feel like it mattered). For example you offer MJ a cliff diving experience which you know your client will not be in favour of, but when it is discovered everyone just sort of… glosses over it? I don’t know, I just feel like there is wasted potential here.
I just finished my first playthough. It was an interesting experience, but I think I need to do a couple more before making any final decisions about what I think of the game, especially because it sounds like there is a lot of variability.
I wound up accidentally not romancing anyone. I was interested in my coworker, but wanted to meet the rest of the cast first, and it looks like not flirting at the first couple chances locks you in as friends (I assume that’s what did it, since I had a very high relationship with them). Similarly, I had a really high relationship with MJ, but they mostly droped out of the narrative once I got promoted, and I never really had a chance to flirt with them. I turned down Ax’s date invite because I wanted zhir to spend time with zhir mother, and didn’t intially perceve it as a come-on, lol.
I was hoping for a little more hijinks. In my first run, I provided generally sound advice that my clients mostly followed, and wound up being CEO at the end pretty passively, when the VCs asked if I wanted the job. It mostly felt like my character was mostly drifting upwards through life without much of an agenda they were working towards, which may be the intent. I think you can certainly read my characters arc as being someone who wasted their life on work. If that was the goal, I think having some conterveiling pressures, like family that needs something, may have helped. (This may be something the ROs would have done if I hadn’t missed the romances).
The game did do a good job of highlighting the inevitable difficulty of being an employee who is intended to provide loyal service to a client, while also being loyal to the company, and having obligations to society.
I really enjoyed how the choices themselves sometimes reflected my level of skill in the stat it was testing. Im sure that was a lot of work, but it was very cool.
Overall, I’d probably give it a 7/10 right now, but I’m looking forward to diving in again and seeing if my opinion changes.
Does anyone else get the bug when being hired by the Falters and setting up the new office, whichever choice you make just circles back to making the choice again?
I think this should be fixed; I sent in a corrected file related to a Falter household hiring issue today. But if it happens again please send it (and a screenshot if possible) to the support address. With games I worked on from the beginning, I’m more comfortable checking the forum and diving into the files to send corrections as I see them, but because the code is pretty complex (and less familiar to me as I came in much later down the line), it will be a lot easier for CoG staff and me to coordinate if it goes through email.
I finished three playthroughs last night. On my first run, there was a dialogue scene with Platt where he talked about retiring, I was thinking to myself “Ok cool, that was an interesting introduction to this cast of characters to get a sense for who they are, now we’re gonna get into the main story.”
Then, next page, the epilogue. Out of nowhere.
This game is really confusing, and the impression I have is that the main choice is either to pursue one of the ROs, or to have professionalism and be good at your job - and nothing in between. When I reached the ending, my overall opinion of the ROs was that they were all really flawed individuals, and I thought that the story would involve helping them with their lives as well as helping them to grow as people.
Maybe I’m just expecting too much, but I felt some whiplash at the suddenness of the ending. It felt to me like I had finished the prologue, but actually I’d finished the entire game. Maybe I made the wrong choices and just closed off a bunch of possible paths? On my second and third playthroughs I intentionally tried not to get the promotion, in hopes that I could never meet Ax and hopefully get assigned to MJ; my goal was to figure out how to get the MJ romance path, but I failed twice. If anyone can offer suggestions in that direction, I kinda want to give it another try.
If you’re trying not to get the promotion, it’s easy to completely tank the interview with Gabriella. Just keep trying to impress her with fancy, exclusive, decadent things, and lay it on harder when she gets upset.
I played through a couple of times and left a steam review.
I’d definitely replay! My chapters 7 and 8 had completely different content on my playthroughs. My first was just like yours but my second was focused on MJ and there were quite a few “hijinks”.
The overall tone really reminded me of Creatures Such as We, very down to earth and reflective.
Really enjoyed this one, and there has been quite a few major variations in my play throughs. I am curious if anyone has successfully married MJ. Because l’ve got the MC to runaway to Macedonia with MJ, but there was no marriage at the end of that route. Is it related to the religious background like with the reporter, or is there some other trick to triggering the marriage path?
Finished my first playthrough last night and I have to say I liked the story. I tried to romance the coworker and was open to it but the possibility never came up after I think the first time it was talked about. I went for the promotion and got the position so I don’t know if that has anything to do with it like someone suggested you may have to choose career or relationship but i’m not sure. I also helped get the money the coworker stole back and got Platt to not fire them but still nothing.
Also, it did kind of feel like the epilogue started kind of abruptly but that may just be me.
Now I would really like to have a game (in the same universe or not) where you are the billionaire this time (not the same MC) and are looking to Platt or another company for their service in managing your lifestyle. Forgot to say, the option to have family you are caring for, religion, and dietary habits were pretty neat so maybe in the hypothetical game you can select factors like that which could play into the situations you may get into and need concierge service for. Its just an outline but I think it would be great written by this same writer.
Now, that’s a name that warrants an insta-buy! I recall reading about this from her newsletter long ago, but to see it finally come to fruition is exciting! Yay! Congrats Emily!
My first playthrough got me crying after reading the golf scene with Platt and Downey (especially because my country is definitely not becoming more democratic these days). It’s a great game with a lot of variations, congrats!
One problem though, I can’t refuse the offer for me to become ceo, what’s happening? I rejected them but the follow-up content is the same.
1st playthrough when I got the premotion I had to go all around the world to find MJ after planning his trip and didnt get an option to romance him (maybe because I told him I was seeing Felix when he asked?) and second playthrough where I didnt get the premotion and wanted to romance MJ, MJ just kinda fell of the planet after planning his trip and I never got the chance to flirt with him.
Very curious about how to initiate any romance — ended up accidentally girlbossing too close to the sun and didn’t get to date anyone but became a CEO .
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