Thank you for the feedback, Drifty, I really appreciate it! You brought up some really good points here and I'll definitely be thinking about those kinds of things more in my future games for sure.
One of the things I'm noticing a lot as more people play through it is that a lot more people are choosing Pamchan's route than I originally anticipated, so I do definitely see now with what you're saying that I really could have incorporated some of the overall core story elements that you find out in other routes to make the story make more sense regardless of who you choose (like the theme that Heidi is overworking herself so much that it leads to her downfall—I realize through Pamchan's story that might not have been as strongly hinted at as other routes for sure, so it makes sense why it may seem to come out of nowhere).
I appreciate the honest and detailed feedback here for sure. With this, I have a better sense of where I should improve and what to prioritize for future projects. One of those will definitely be finding inconsistencies with those branching paths, as I see that's been something that was definitely a challenge to fully test on a short deadline.