Just a minor thing I noticed: when we give our child the 25 cents a day allowance, it’s mentioned we took out a calculator and turned it into an impromptu math lesson. I was wondering if we could show our child how to calculate it manually instead? I wouldn’t want to inadvertently fuel the child’s reliance on a calculator…
Also, my apologies, but how does the in-universe system of education work, exactly? I presume it’s based on another country than my own, and I’m a tad confused by it.
If you ever do decide to do it, I have basic French, German and Italian, and I have two close friends who are first language in French and German. I could rag on first language Korean and first language Chinese friends too if necessary.
I’m not trying to be pushy, rip, just saying that if there ever was something you were struggling with, the community often goes out of their way to help. 
I agree with this, or even different lifestyle choices. Examples include religious background, ethnical backgrounds, different ways of living (travelers, nudists/naturists, even former tribalists that still practice), or even foreigners brought over by their parents (making your child a 3rd generational X Nationality, living in America).
Isn’t a child with a foreign parent considered second generation? Or do different countries use the terms differently? 
Either way, I don’t think the story would differ that much since the kid would have citizenship anyway since they are born in one of the states at the start of the story.
I think that much like the nationality issue mentioned awhile back, having only a choice or two without any bigger scenes and research to back it up might make it feel shallow. Having said that, I really do like the idea of the different religious and ethnic backgrounds (still hoping for that cultural school party in the sequel! 
), although I do think @hustlertwo would have to narrow down the choices, and that could be difficult, too.
It is 3rd gen if the parents of the parents, are that nationality
While I definitely appreciate how passionate y’all are for this wish list, it’s just not really plausible for the most part. And even some of the parts that might be doable would involve delaying release for weeks or even months to add content the majority of readers will never see. While also sending my already-spiraling words per playthrough ratio further downward, potentially past the recommended .2 minimum.
One other thing: ironically, it is only when I start introducing these things as customizable options that I truly limit them. Right now the story has been specifically crafted for the MC to be just about anyone. About as blank as slates get. But let’s say I offer a choice to designate ethnicity, and give options like Caucasian, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American. Never mind that this will be an incredibly shallow change unless I undergo the massive task of inserting unique references all throughout the story for each choice to give it meaning. It also means anyone who wants a choice other than those feels excluded. They are now less happy than if I never offered a choice at all, because their background of choice wasn’t an option. Solvable by adding more backgrounds? To an extent. Except now it’s even more work, fewer words per playthrough, and yet you still can never truly include every possibility. And the more options you do include, the madder you will make those whose options didn’t make the cut because it makes those groups seem more unimportant or obscure.
I guess this sort of thing pops up more in a story like this because it is a lot more reality-based than most Choice games. I would be curious how other slice of life titles did it.
That’s perfectly okay for me, personally. As I said before, I’m not American, and didn’t really think about any of this before it was mentioned here.
The only other “slice of life” title I can think of is Love at Elevation, which allows the player to choose their hometown (because that’s important to the story, I think), but not cultural / ethnical background.
Yeah I understand that. Someone got pissy at me because I gender locked the characters in my story.
You can’t win. People want inclusion, then complain when they get it.
Yep. The main takeaway is no matter what you do, someone won’t be happy. There’s a reason there aren’t any stories at 5.0 on the omnibus apps.
How dare you try to make me happy! I am furious!
Kidding of course.
unfortunately the sheer act of making someone else happy too makes some people upset.
@hustlertwo
I noticed that there is one story thread that has been left dangling: gender (non)essentialism. If you don’t really plan to do much with it beyond the early interest in 3, I understand (it is a big can of worms, especially in the U.S). If it will be revisited after that scene, it should affect more decisions in the later years.
Another thing that really bothers me is the activity scene in 15. Certain activities, such as music and STEM, have a really strong overlap between them and academic excellence (many of the people who take 4+ AP classes are also drum majors/first chairs), and that the kid can’t do well in both school and the activity (especially when they are receiving activity support) is strange.
Hey ever thought if adding holidays to the game? Or at least the three major ones Halloween, Christmas and thanksgiving? I think it could be fun but i still love this demo even without it so do whatever you want.
Christmas is breifly touched on in Year 10 I think, with the pet
There will be a brief holiday mention for the end of year 16 (under the new numbering) but it won’t be any of those, actually. It’ll be a callback to a scene y’all seemed to enjoy: the Mother’s/Father’s Day, and how different it is now that $!{aname} is older and potentially has access to actual money.
It’s true that people who do those activities also tend to be high achievers elsewhere, but it’s a false causality to say one helped the other. Part of it is a simplification for this game, but the other part is simply that the more time you spend on one thing, the less you have elsewhere. Spend more time studying, have less time to play violin. It’s a simple calculus; a teenager’s time is finite. Their resources, finite. You can have a valedictorian, you can have a star football player, you can have a budding actor. But you can’t have them all, not at once. You can be good at several things at once, but true greatness requires singularity of focus. Or at least it does here.
Updated! I’ll only be saying that a couple more times.
I just checked the code and it shouldn’t be, the redirect was deleted. Is your version updated?
@hustlertwo
It should be updated, I’ve cleared the cache, and tried it in incognito. I’m talking about the scene that’s called year 17 in the code.
Anyone else having trouble seeing the update? I made sure to check the code before I left for work, I saw nothing that would prevent it.
