The One Vol. 1

the branching in this game is unrealll. i could spoil my entire story here & someone who dumped different people first would probably have no idea what i'm talking about. multiple endings with each of the 8 love interests. extremely replayable game.

subject matter can get extremely heavy, a lot heavier than you'd expect from silly bachelorette game. one chapter in particular had you step away from the show altogether after learning your father has been hospitalized. this chapter is really powerful, and i imagine it felt very cathartic for the writer to make. but chapters like this make it really hard to jump right back into the "silly dating show"

that's definitely a bit of the point of the story though. to comment on how reality shows don't really allow for their contestants to be fully authentic. they only show us a fraction of who their contestants truly are.

overall though, i thought this was good! art style felt a bit uncanny valley. a lot of the challenges felt like filler (the murder mystery and photo shoot especially). the main character complains a lot about having cameras everywhere which, what did you think you were signing up for babes. but it has a lot of heart. and again, there is SO much branching in this story.

defi recommend it. just again, take the content warnings seriously. this game gets dark


okay SPOILER TIME. i wanna talk about my playthrough :)

- the first 2 to go were thiago (he touched me ew) & ford
- adira was the frontrunner early on. i had an option to go on a date with someone and i picked her
- adira sabotaged the cameras in all the bedrooms & got kicked off the show (she came back a few dumpings later)
- much later on, someone broke into my room & stole my cat (who i'd named The Man)
- because the cameras weren't fixed yet, the catnapper almost got away with it. she revealed that someone in the cast was engaged to her
- final 3 were luka, adira & mona (i struggled sooo much to make this choice. all 3 of them were so great)
- i chose to dump mona
- the host gave me the option to look at mona's secret now, to see if she was the one who's secretly engaged. i took it
- mona's secret is revealed to be that she is dying. she leaves the show and i'm the worst person in the world
- in the final, i chose adira. but because i agreed to see mona's secret, adira rejected me, and i ended the show single
- there's a time jump after this, and i'm on a coffee date with MONAAA. i was so relieved, i was already planning to replay and choose her
- mona reveals she isn't getting treatment. i justifiably yelled at her "what if i picked you? you get a couple years of happiness and then i got a lifetime of sadness?" mona goes, but you didn't pick me. i go "i made a mistake damn it!!" very heartfelt moment. mona agrees to get treatment. says she needs me. my heart :( <333

i'm so curious how much of this happens in every playthrough. cause like, this is all kicked off by adira being around after 2 dumpings. her cutting the cameras is what led into all of these other events. so curious how the story played out for someone who dumped her first