There definitely is. I managed it in all my playthroughs except, ironically, in my last one. Try:
telling him buildings don’t move
escorting him into the building
asking him if he feels ok when he gets dizzy
bringing his journal up to his room, and leaving it there
NOT asking him if anyone else noticed anything weird
call him back when he phones you in the middle of the night
The only thing I did differently in my last playthrough was the next-to-last one, where I DID ask him if anyone else noticed anything weird, which got me coma. All the others resulted in him being a mysterious, shadowy guest (whose voice you recognise) on a podcast blowing the lid on the magical conspiracy.
Admittedly, there was a patch between those playthroughs so maybe the requirements have changed, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
I think, and I’m not 100 % sure, to fully disable the Mnemosyne without getting caught you need to have read more about it in the hidden room in the library. There’s a scene where you can take Niko into the restricted section and you’re given a choice of books to read. In one play through I read about the Mnemosyne and was able to completely destroy it and in another I read about demonic possession to help Poppy and wasn’t able to destroy it. That was practically the only different choice I made in those two runs so I’m sure that’s what changes the outcome.
Just finished my first play through. I like the prose and how it changes its style from different events, especially during the (spoiler) climax event. And the author’s paid a lot of efforts to all the different subplots and characters and how they weave into each other.
I do have some complaints about it though, mostly in the game aspect:
I don’t like how some choices and their checks work. I personally prefer choices where I can tell its likely consequence: how likely is my character to succeed, and what effect will it have? For example, in January, when you are saving Ravi from getting his memory erased, you have the choices to call him back, ask his roommates, and head straight to him. Now, it appears like all three choices do similar thing, but when I peeked in the code, they actually test three different attributes: you need high communication to successfully call him back, insight to go to “where my guts say” he was gone, and creativity to ask his roommates! Why do I need creativity to get information from his roommates? There’s no way I can tell this without looking into the code, and I don’t like it because if I can’t pick an action depending on my character’s strength, I might as well be picking at random.
I wish there is a way to opt out of some subplots that I’m not interested in. In my playthrough I ignored spirit contact, so I don’t actually want to apply to the internship because there’s little chance for me to get accepted, but the story goes on as if I’m interested and desperately wants a spot in it. An internship application isn’t like an exam where every student is forced to participate, right? An option to opt out of it, or if it’s too much work to code this, at least an option to say that I only applied because the teacher forces me to, would be nice. Similarly for the Trine—I hope there’s an option to say fuck it to the Trine and refuse to take part the trial (although this one has an excuse: maybe you don’t have a choice to reject the trials of the secret, powerful, all-seeing triumvirate…)
Related to above, there are soooo many subplots it’s easy to lost track of what’s going on! I feel like you can easily split them into two or more separate stories and they’ll still be great.
The romance feels a bit too sudden. I invited Dahir over for the winter break, whom I have only met in the story only around twice in a definitely non-romantic settings, and then came New Year’s Eve, and he asked me for a kiss? Maybe that’s how romance works for some people (I sadly have little experience), but personally I’d prefer to see more build-up.
(Endgame spoiler) It seems a bit too easy to die in the encounter with Not!Poppy in May. I chose to evacuate the people in the dorm and apparently failed the check, and then all a sudden I’m dead! Feels like my entire playthrough and all the effort to get my grades up, destroy the Mnemosyne, etc, got wasted and I can’t see the conclusion to the story. My opinion is, if you want your character to be killed, make it a multi-step check so that even if you fail partially, it doesn’t automatically lead to the worst outcome.
Like others said, the spring GPA seems buggy. Even though I got full 4.0 in my fall GPA, my spring GPA started off as a measly 1.0. Apparently the code says it has to do with my number of electives and number of hours I put in part-time work? Which brings me back to my first point: I wish the game would tell me how my electives and part-time hours would affect my grades. Even a vague indication (taking a sixteen-hour work week would have a moderately bad influence on your grade, especially because you’re taking three electives, sth like that) would be good.
Also, there’s a point during the spring break when I decided to head to the library to study, and it somehow dropped my fall GPA instead? The code says that my GPA should be dropped (which already sounds counterintuitive: I’m staying here to study, but even if I failed a check and lost my backpack it should not actively hurt my academic performance—at most I don’t improve as much), but it at least should be my spring GPA instead of fall GPA.
All in all, not bad. I’m looking forward to my second play through and see what turns up differently.
We’re aware of the GPA issues and the author is looking into them for future updates - we had thought the problems there were fixed during beta testing, but obviously that’s not the case. Sorry about that!
I’m curious what the issue is now. I mean, I managed a double-4.0 GPA post patch, so clearly it’s possible. Maybe there’s one or two specific options that lower your GPA when they should increase it?
I really wanted to like this game but I played as high subterfuge and high self serving and ended up with an MC who is high in honesty and principle? So then I ended up failing lots of stat checks and with an epilogue that made no sense for my play style. I lost the internship and ended up moving back home to the hotel and Maks hated my MC??
Like someone mentioned above, stat checks and skills made little sense in this game and make it almost impossible to plat, at least in my experience. I literally spent an entire night trying to perfect my play through and I still always ended up failing major stat checks.
No, you definitely can. In the final trial, when you’re told to use the Mnemosyne to screw with your roommate’s memory while they sleep, I had the option to say, “yeah no, that’s messed up, not happening,” and the Trine all collectively shunned me for it. I don’t know if that’s something that’s different depending on choices, so I don’t know if it exists on your end or not.
We’re about to push an update that should fix the GPA problem. If anyone is still having issues after downloading that update, can you write into support@choiceofgames.com with as much information as possible about where you are in the game and what choices you’ve made, including screenshots if you can? (If the GPA change is happening in the stats page, it’s still helpful to know where you are in the game.) It’s a lot easier on our end if you can do bug reports through email rather than here - it’s simpler to keep track of if everyone has seen the report who needs to on our side, and we can also go back and forth with you to figure out the relevant details without clogging the forum thread. Thanks!
This game was ok but I got a lot of things that need to say anyone who is trying to be good is wasting they time is obvious the mc is evil in his own way how can a principled character be aware of a body in the car booth and just do nothing and also if the mc is aware of his family shady deals why are they not doing anything to stop it or reform it to become good that principled stats in my book is bullshit
And the second thing is why the heck will the ability to destroy the machine not be by magic ability but the stupid shit of reading book in a library was trying to train the magic path we want all a waste
And the third please tell me how the F did Luka get our key when I have not been in body contact for this to happen only in phone contact when she tried to take the hallow and this wasn’t even the plan what lead to the library I thought she wanted the hallow why library what changed
And finally the last the game stinks in making choice option yes we are given choices but once you tap one choice you can’t go back to other choice that lead to other event or a different location or options to ask a simple question that give the players some clarity
This a ok game but it is all messed up people can play again for replayability sake to find different endings or figuring out what went wrong but it will just not satisfy anyone taste of loving this game not many options to explore
Not exactly yes I agree this is no different from other CoG game but this game is just I don’t know it is lacking in some options that need consideration like just simply asking questions to give us some information and increase certain goals if it didn’t wanted us to explore those other questions at least we should have use our communication skills check or personality stats for persuading the people we are talking to tell us more or even just use magic to force or convince them
This exact same thing happened to me last night! I had such a good playthrough up until that part too, so I was so confused and kinda disappointed when this was the ending I got.
The tone of the pitch for the game is wildly different from the tone of the game. I thought this would focus more on student life, I don’t think you can even decide what to wear to class at any point despite that being mentioned. This is closer to Lovecraft than a college comedy. I’m honestly a little disappointed. The world building was very intriguing, but in contrast I felt like I had no control over my character’s social life or even morals. As I played the game, I couldn’t get a grasp of what I could try to achieve until choices were right on top of me, and then retroactively I’d have needed to do things differently. I get that you can do multiple playthroughs but it feels narratively incoherent. There are also several times when your character discovers information they can never mention to people, or that later comes up as though they’re just learning it months later (e.g. the tea). Also the romance is very tacked on but w/e.
There is, but I’m really not sure how I did it. I just kinda… avoided death. I couldn’t tell you what steps I took, exactly, to pull it off, only that it’s apparently possible.
