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Of course the game warns you about the paths but this is also a choice game with consequences that come with the choices. I don't want to risk bricking the story over a bad combat system (And that's not an insult to the creator, I've yet to see Renpy churn out a functional, balanced combat system).

This game is also rough when it comes to restarting and skipping dialogue. Too many important choices. Kody's is the worst to restart with the whole recipe thing. It's cute the first few times but can be a real pain. This makes the game difficult to replay to make other choices with, that's why I prefer my ongoing play to be the path I'd prefer (though I'm sure Renpy will force us to restart eventually).

I completely forgot about the flat comment. Clever!

Loved it! I can't wait for the Ryder topping option! I do have one question though, spoilers in case:

So the part in the school where Ethan and Nathan both present their souls. Both souls are fine but it's later shown that at least Ethan has been awoken long before that part. Shouldn't  there have been some sign of trauma? If it's an oversight or if you have a reason that will reveal later then that's cool. I'm just curious.

Yeahhhh... I'm with you on this. The combat is absolutely not fun. I've completed with Alex a while ago but Max is rough and Kody is actually impossible. I guess I'll wait until they do something about the RPG system...

Great art, great characters, great start! Can't wait to read more. :)

Spoilers:

Mikko leads Arvo out and things play similar to the normal ending at first. Mikko tricks Arvo with a hug in order to handcuff him to a tree. He then proceeds to berate Arvo and tell him that he keeps getting close and pushing him away. Mikko then swings an axe he brought and things go black (in the original writing he embeds the axe in the tree by Arvo's head, that was removed in the update). You regain perspective of Arvo and find that Mikko abandoned him, still cuffed in freezing cold temperatures supposedly with the key nearby. Eventually the wolf stranger that you can meet in a few of the other routes happens upon Arvo and frees him. Arvo then decides it's a good time to go home and heads to town in order to leave. The end.

spoiler reply

For me the issue isn't that there isn't a good ending but rather that the aggressiveness of it was pretty out there. You're definitely right about the red flags though, especially when you consider the first bad end you can get in Mikko's route.

I don't completely agree that Arvo is his Torulf though. I guess from Mikko's perspective, sure. The shit that happened was like in junior high I think it was mentioned. While shit can carry with us I highly doubt that's the kind of trauma that would create such a sadistic method of dealing with shit. What's more likely is that something way worse happened afterward (the mentioned boyfriend maybe?). Then Arvo comes along and he tried desperately to cling to something positive but ultimately uses Arvo as an easy punching bag instead (Arvo is kind of a push-over).

It should also be noted that Arvo had tried to avoid Mikko for the most part. Sure it was ultimately his choice when the key goes missing but Mikko was the one who tried to reconnect first. I don't think it's fair to blame Arvo for relenting to reconnect, especially when he's clearly not good at seeing red flags. I could see why you would feel awkward about Mikko's route being a route but in Arvo's perspective at the choice, this is him reconnecting with a friend not choosing a romantic partner.

That said though. We don't know the details on other things and his behavior throughout are signs of a very unhealthy person. It will take a lot to turn the route around and have it not be toxic and if I were in place of Arvo I wouldn't even try after the blow up (And get the police involved in terms of the bad ending). I'm gonna say it, Mikko is a bad dog! Bad dog!

At the beginning of Mikko's route, don't go with him (The scene where he works on his music outside and Arvo hugs him). You'll lock in the bad end. I wouldn't suggest doing it though as it kind of soured Mikko's route for me a bit.

Spoilers

Damn. Was hoping the rewrite would make the scene a little less uh... sadistic. Well I guess it was a little by removing the mentions of the axe having actually been swung at him like the original. Ah well. Fun to read regardless. Thanks for expanding it!

You likely have the "preferable" ending already.

If you have to question which ending you got then you got the better one.

Oh boy. I'd listen to the disclaimer about not looking for the other ending...

This is bullshit! My stocks stocks are plummeting!

Sometimes you have to work extra hard for the d.