I’ve added the guide for the soulmate route to the main post as it requires a few specific choices (if not using SKIP). Though right now, I still don’t know why this route might be mixing with the neutral path in Chapter 4.
Edit: I’ve made a workaround for the bug that was mixing routes, so it shouldn’t happen anymore.
Though I didn’t locate the troublesome part yet. 
Rue my beloved
well, that was a fun ride.
Although I couldn’t for the life of me trigger any romance interaction with a female Sieun as a female character. Are there any specific choices that must be made in order to move forward with the romance? I’ve read that something is supposed to happen in chap 2, but never got anything. 
edit: oh, somehow I also got the skip from the Acropolis to the risotto without knowing what happens in between while being on the soulmate route with both female MC and Prue. Not sure if that’s supposed to happen (played the whole thing from the start) or if that can be of any help. 
It’s definitely helpful! Now I know my workaround doesn’t fix that particular bug I still haven’t tracked down
So for now, the safest way to do the soulmate part in the update is by skipping straight to chapter 4.
Thanks for the report!
edit: Just to make sure I understand: did you skip the entire Ernest meeting at Acropolis (no conversation with him at all), and went straight from waking up-messages to the risotto-label part?
Did you go on the fishing trip with Mark earlier? If yes, how did it end for you?
edit2: So, tracking down that one bug has led me to the following conclusions:
I’ve missed some possible outcomes of the fishing trip that make you “fall” through the code to the part with the label, bypassing the soulmate variable checks. (I’ve made a workaround for that)
You’re possibly not on the soulmate route, because if you were, the MC would receive messages from Prue/Rue at the beginning of the chapter and call them to get details about the meeting.
The soulmate route can only be triggered by reaching that one specific ending of the motel scene.
Of course I may be mistaken. 
If Seb ends up in the hospital, the MC will have the option to go to a bar with Sieun during the second visit (Chapter 2). From Chapter 3 onward, the romance is in full swing. There’s a restaurant date available, as well as a date at Sieun’s apartment.
If the player chooses Sieun as their RO instead of Seb, the romance continues on Seb’s route — or rather, it builds on their already established relationship.
It’s possible that one of the stats is locked. To make sure you unlock the romance, you either need to go to the bar or have a relationship score of 60 or higher. You can raise that score by volunteering to be the hostage instead of Sieun during the “shitty job.”
sorry the workaround’s not exactly working as intended! Maybe it’s the universe telling the MC to gtfo and go live in the woods instead?
But yeah, I skipped the whole thing, and did not go to the fishing trip (Mark did not invite my MC ) . Basically I also went from “Stepping out, you head straight toward the conference room, entering without knocking.” to “Getting back home, you spend some time preparing a huge portion of risotto” just as the post above.
edit looks like we answered at the same time 
. I think I am on the soulmate route though! I do get to see Prue’s messages and phone call during the stuffed nose incident.
Ah, Seb never ended in the hospital, so this would explain that. I suspected it had something to do with switching the route or stay on track - should have tried that. I’ll mess up next time to see what happens! Looking forward to get to know a little more about both Sieun and Seb. Thanks for the tip!
Thanks for the additional info! I’ve finally tracked down the bug and fixed it. 
As for the soulmate path, I thought you had exactly the same bug as @Sel_Lee (jumping straight to the meeting with the label without any previous mention of it in the text). But if your MC called Prue, then the route is working fine.
Awesome!
What exactly is the soulmate path? Is it different from the regular Prue/Rue path?
I briefly skimmed through the most recent comments, so if this was previously covered I apologize for rehashing it. Has Mark’s route now been released yet? Personally I’m not interested in Seb’s route, and I have already played through Sieun’s route and loved it. I have played through it maybe twice now trying to advance Mark’s route with no luck on getting his storyline to progress.
I personally don’t like Marks route. It is odd. I normally like daddy routes but he doesn’t show any interest in anything I say. I went for the soulmate route and it is so nice. I am the red flag girlfriend in that route. 
I usually don’t go that route, but I thought it would be interesting to see how the dynamic of MC’s crime family would change and play out as their romance progressed.
We’re a mobster and we’re not walking around strapped?
So? You can have all the healing you want, the point of having a weapon to be able to deal with threats to you or others without having to resort to just your fists. Right now, we’d have to steal a weapon to be able to do literally anything offensive. If we had offensive powers, I wouldn’t bring this up, but right now, we have purely defensive powers.
Also, don’t we still feel pain? We had a headache in the beginning of the demo. So just because you can heal, your character would let someone shoot them? …Why? You can just…not.
And the Father trusting us or not doesn’t matter. He has us to his dirty work. If he expected any degree of genuine results, he would have let us carry one. If he wanted, he could just have us be patted down and disarmed every time we come home. He’s rich.
The story has no explanation for this at all. It’s just a fair bit of an oversight, it doesn’t ruin anything.
No? During the ‘shitty-ride’ job, MC has a choice to go armed and can use that gun.
MC doesn’t walk around unarmed or defenseless by default.
Yes, you can use guns in the game. I didn’t say you couldn’t.
Not from what I played.
I took a break from IFs for a while (mostly bc I just already read everything I found worth reading) so imagine my delight finding this absolute gem or a WIP! Absolutely loving the concept, great fun with high stakes. I was super invested and read it in one go.
Usually set characters are not my preference and I often don’t stick with them, but I really vibe with this mc (admittingly this might be because he reminds me of my male V from Cyberpunk and I did give him an unexisting hair colour option (high contrast salt & pepper gray hair in my mind while still looking very young, though that happened more than that I actively decided on it)
Was I grossed out by the roaches? Were the sad clothes confrontational? Yes, but it brought me into his mindset and the situation he is in as the son of an uncaring mob boss. The limited expectations he has for his future and the gaping contrast with Paul. It worked for me, and I was glad to see that during the game you can improve his life by breaking the cycle little by little (or stay there and make it worse if you so choose) I enjoyed, for instance, that while not being the greatest fan of Paul’s prissy style, he could work a good suit to his advantage/better impression for the record deal and look good while doing it.
My mc is envious of Paul’s life, of the love of their mother he can never receive, but he doesn’t blame Paul. He messes with him in good fun but has his back when it counts and I’m super curious if this ends in betrayal or no! (and from whose side, if not both)
For the romances, all of them aside from Seb (atm, maybe that will change when I play his route) are interesting to me for different reasons, which I think is a pretty cool feat.
I do think Rupert is very feminine coded and it occasionally throws me out of the immersion (yes he’s soft boi but my mind does picture him as Prue almost as much as Rue, which is not really supposed to happen, I think. It could do with a bit more distinction in my eyes. I very much love their story/soulmate route and I think that will be my main though Rue is a tad bit young for my taste (but that’s not a critique) It’s also fun to have other characters really yearn for mc but holding back and not just the other way around! I’m also looking forward to the drama of MC no longer healing sufficiently/getting seriously injured and the pain that will cause his RO’s but especially Rue.
I haven’t played the others’ routes yet bc I only found this wip yesterday night, but I’ll come back to them once I do.
Mark interests me as an experiment and an age gap I can actually see happen situation wise, and I’m going to pursue it out of a sense of morbid curiosity where my MC does not aspire to improve his life because he does not believe it can happen. I’m very appreciative of having this option!
Sieun I like very much as a character, and I’m curious about his story but not as sure yet what their endgame will be like.
Other things: |
Seb feels a tad bland for me still, I don’t feel as connected to this character as with the others, maybe some more memories/throwbacks with him or carving out his character a little bit sharper.
‘Heat pooling in stomach’ is more of a feminine descriptor of the experience of arousal, but not so much a man’s. It felt out of place.
Also: Oh Ernest, how I dream of your demise.
And Barbara, how much I want you to meet and hold your other son.
Really looking forward to the development of this game and the future updates. it’s already really good to me!
Thank you for the feedback! It’s great that you found the game engaging enough to binge it in one sitting and that you’re vibing with MC, because that’s honestly vital for getting into the story. It’s incredibly rewarding to hear that the game felt high-stakes and emotionally impactful while still giving real player agency. This means a lot.
Glad you’re enjoying the soulmate route, as it’s my little private detox from Mark’s… side of things. I’ve noted what you said about Rue occasionally reading a bit too feminine, and I’ll keep an eye on that while I revisit the current content and write more. He’s definitely meant to be a soft, very young guy, and in my head, he’s the type who’ll gradually be shaped by MC as things move forward. It just feels inevitable when you’re a young adult yearning for the mafia dude and dealing with a heavy metal record deal in your early twenties.
Yeah, although we cannot yet have the mc do anything about even when they do wear other clothes, like the leather pants, I do not trust it because we did not buy or steal it new in-game and anything the mc owns that is not their motorcycle seems to be complete crap, which makes me think the mc’s “leather” pants are some cheap plastic pleather crap that is falling apart too, like most of the rest of mc’s rummage sale reject wardrobe.
Mine isn’t, not exactly, Paul’s life is not for him, but my mc is envious of the fact that Paul has a life and real choices and things that are not complete crap. So I guess it is more envy of circumstances and material condition than Paul’s specific life as my mc much as his own style is complete and utter crap does not care much for Paul’s style or the business Paul is in either. I guess we’ll see how much we can get the mc to truly change (like actually buy or steal, I mean the mc is a criminal so not ruling that out except in this case it would mean finally doing so because mc wants something instead of because they are ordered by their father), something decent and whether or not that matters in the end.
That also really drives home how nothing the mc does or owns is ever truly theirs at present and the only time they look good it is literally in borrowed clothes, ugh!