Thanks, I'm glad you've been enjoying it! And I completely understand being wary of and in-development game from someone with no previous track record - I've been burned a bunch, too. I kind of get why some people ultimately give up, it's a lot of exhausting work to create a game solo, but the way some people just disappear is wildly unprofessional.
Anyway, about romances - every romanceable guy definitely has the possibility for a happy ending, but it'll really come down to if your Connor is on the same page as the other guy. That's why I'm not locking you into a romance path early, so you can shift your focus if it seems you're growing at odds with a character.
Riley is a great choice for a full romance if you already feel in sync with his character. He's been very upfront and open about who he is.
It's interesting how revelations about Matt are being taken, but I 100% get it - in fact, one of the romanceable guys has the exact same turnoff. There's definitely reasons for how Matt's been living - his feelings about Connor contributed to how he developed when away from home for the first time. Their story is really about re-discovering each other as friends, whether that leads to sex/romance or not.
Basically I'm trying to cover a gamut of how gay relationships can develop and how to navigate them, and Matt's choices are part of that. If anyone reading this is interested in what his and some other stories are exploring, there's a book called The Velvet Rage that goes into how the experiences of gay men can lead to a need for a certain kind of validation. It's an older book and it assumes the reader is a middle-aged, well-to-do white man, but if you can get past that, there's some interesting stuff.
So to sum it up - my hope is to take existing tropes like "the best friend" and put a little bit of a uniquely gay spin on them. It's been pretty cool to see how many people look beyond the sex and engage with the characters as people 🙂