Just letting you know that I managed to get the walkthrough up :3 You can find it here.
Viewing post in Apartment No.9 GxB Version comments
Ohh I have so many questions, but first I could never get all the endings without the walkthrough so thanks. <3
All in all I feel like her happy ending should be alone - Not sure if there's a "original" or "official" ending, but it will always be the happier ending for me.
My opinion on the game didn't change tho, would play again 10/10 (^.^
Sort of spoilery
I was stuck for some time to get the "Letting go" endings bc I couldn't NOT chose to kill him again after his demands and load back to chose "end it all" and get the last 2 endings, but it always goes to the "After life" ending so it took me some time to know that I had to chose to kill him and right after when Doyle forces the game to go back is when I was meant to chose "end it all" to get the last endings.
Now my VERY spoilery questions
I tought that we were playing as Leah 'till when Doyle breaks the fourth wall demanding his happy ending to the player, wich was interesting and made sense for us not to get to change Leah in appearence or name because of that, but it opened new possibilities that didn't have any explanation in game like:
Does Doyle knows he's in a game? How does he knows of our presence? what are we in the game? Puppeteers (after all Doyle accuses us of manipulating and controlling Leah)
And the most important question of all:
Am I overthinking this? (~.~
Is this game linked to another older or future project of yours? Bc after killing Doyle (not sure if in the first or second time) a voice talks to the player (perhaps?) asks if we remember them (yep, had to chose "no" for the creepy) and that they are watching us, warning us not to bore them (not sure if they called us Anthea, Anatema or something else( didn't had my headphone so could only guess) but it made me question that if they really were talking to the player why would they call us that?)
And if it was indeed linked to another game I have to say that you sold it well bc I crave answers now hah
I shall do my best to try and answer them :3
I'm glad you still liked the game after getting all of the endings :D It would have been fun to have even more endings in there, but I figured I better not go toooo crazy or I'd never finish in time for the end of the jam x3 I guess I should put everything else under spoilers, haha.
SPOILERS
In regards to an original or official ending. In the episode of the show that inspired me to make this game, the ending of the episode is at the same point where I ended it in Leah's story. So the colleague finds the homeless person dead in the bathtub and it cuts to credits. That's it. Story over. And it works fantastically in the episode, which is why I wanted to end it there in Leah's story as a tribute to the episode :3 But it wouldn't be a very happy ending for an otome game if that was the only ending x3 So I wanted to expand on it some more afterwards using Doyle's story to get his PoV + explore alternate endings.
In the episode, there is no romance going on between the protagonist and the homeless person at all because they are both heterosexual male characters. The story is more about how the homeless person is slowly taking over the protagonist's life and they are switching places as the homeless person becomes more and more like the protagonist while the protagonist becomes more and more like the homeless person over time.
I would say that any of the game's endings could be taken as the true ending since it's up to the player to decide, but I personally would say that either one of the 'Letting Go' endings are the 'true' endings :3 It just depends whether the player would prefer Leah leave Doyle and move on from Aku alone, or whether she should pursue a romance with Doyle.
I agree with you though that the happiest ending for Leah would be her moving on alone :3 Just because I don't think the relationship she has with Doyle is particularly healthy, even if he does apologise and stuff, haha.
Yeah, it's a little bit confusing to get those other endings just because the 'Kill Doyle' and 'End it all' choices look exactly the same both times. The second lot are quite awkward to get back to unless you have a save in the exact right place because it means going through the first 'Kill Doyle' option all over again and past the 'Lingering Love' ending. Maybe I should have put recommended save points in the walkthrough actually! I will update it in a minute.
You're not overthinking it at all :3 You're absolutely right that that particular ending with Doyle breaking the fourth wall and what comes afterwards with the voice talking to the player is related to another project of mine. Well, it's linked to an older project, and to future projects because the voice that you hear is a recurring character that I have plans for throughout the various games that I make.
Ordinarily, Doyle would not have been able to break the fourth wall on his own, so to answer your questions, the only reason that he started acting that way all of a sudden, is because he was being influenced/given power by the voice.
One of the voice's lines says:
'Aww, don't pull such a boring face, Anathema. I made that last bit just for you! Didn't you love it as much as I did?'
Anathema is the name that the voice refers to the player as (it means 'offering/sacrifice'.) It makes a little bit more sense if you've already seen the character's introduction within my first game, Solipsism Reigns, but I hoped it would still come across as mysterious/intriguing to anyone who didn't already know the character as well :3 You hear more from him in Solipsism, but it still only serves as a brief intro. I won't spoil anything in case you plan to play it at some point because then you'll meet him for yourself, haha, but it's quite a long game to play through.
He doesn't have an official name yet but there is a bit of a hint in Solipsism at one point, and he's already gained himself an affectionate nickname (Archie, haha.) My plan was to include some kind of appearance from him in everything I make, but I didn't have the time to with previous jam games. I definitely have much more planned for him in the future though :3