I would like to thank you very much for your detailed and deep review of the game.
I will try to share my take and experience while making this game, and as well answer to some of your questions.
My first idea for the narrative was that I wanted to make a story about a high ranking overly arrogant businessman loosing his position and becoming one of the lower class citizens that he so rudely pities. When I started writing the game in Twine, I came up with an idea of the wife and mistress, that message that Liam gets was meant to be a little hook, so players can look forward to what's to come. I wanted to showcase as much as possible of Liam's character trough his interactions with side characters, but I didn't want for players to be stuck and just watch as the character they play as be an a**hole, so I gave them little choices, that are meant to be the subconscious mind working for Liam. I believe that no one in this world is meant to be just good or just bad, and that includes Liam.
The wife and mistress route:
I was quite surprised when you said you enjoyed the wife route more (now I wish that I made more backgrounds and a little more effort in sound design with the wife). The wife route I wrote first, I wanted to show how the marriage was long gone. That's why the wife wasn't so emotionally invested, as well as Liam. We can see that Liam took the relationship as granted, and while writing that dialog I wrote two choices (one where Liam realizes that he will lose something important, and the one where he can be like he is now and let her go). The mistress route is like an act of sexual urge, something that will bring Liam and the player pleasure and fun time, filled with dopamine. I had this girl in my head, the one on the cover picture (she's also my type hehe, good taste), and I wrote my sexual fantasy of her that I imagined at that moment. I wanted it to be as erotic as it can be, but I didn't want to be overly vulgar (I was a little bit afraid I could get banned from the jam if I went a bit overboard also). The disclaimer for the game was maybe a bit unsettling, but I wanted to be sure I won't break any rules, because there is an explicit description of sex, even if it wasn't vulgarly shown in player's face.
Art
I have to say I am very flattered when you said you liked my art. That's with what I was most struggling. I am not a good artist, especially with the digital stuff. I used real life photos on the internet and drawn over them, adding some details of my own as lighting or a few objects. I wanted to make it simple as possible, as I wanted to save time, because of the short time schedule. I didn't draw people (and I really wanted to draw Roxi, believe me) because of the short time schedule, and I didn't want to screw it up and put some half drawn picture I was not proud of, but I am glad that It works this way too, and adds a little imagination to it.
Sound
You are right, I used the sounds from Freesound.org. You would be surprised what you can actually find there. There were audio tapes of sex, moaning, bj's and everything. Soo I used the girl sounds from there too haha. Wanted to put the real sex sounds with the sticky audio and everything, but I didn't want to exaggerate (cuz of jam and my game's main focus). I am quite new to programing so I don't know how to make one audio run over a few scenes, so it doesn't cut off, as it is heard in cafe scenes ( I definitely have room for improvement there).
Bonus: I take you like Harley Quinn too? She was the reference for the cover photo. There is just something in quirky punk twin tailed blonds that I can't get over it. I have a major crush on her.
- Small edit: The reaction to the waiter spilling the drink impacts the ending greatly. If the player choses to part with wife or go with mistress, he will ether become homeless, or get a second chance due to his politeness with the waiter, and get a job at the cafe. Also I unfortunately noticed the text was barely visible after I finished the backgrounds, I tried many colors, but I did not found the color that could work for all of the backgrounds, this one was the best one (sadly not quite good). I didn't succeed in making the individual slides have different texts, due to lack of my programming skills.