Did I mess up? (SPOILERS up to the end of the 'first act')

[MabinoZerk]

I got to the part where the MC walks into Sayori's room and finds her corpse on the day of the festival, and my first instinct is to make a save. I notice the message on the CG mentioning a game file, but I absentmindedly click on the screen, causing the text to advance to the MC saying "What the hell?" and making the message disappear. So I load the save I just made to look at that message again, but then it automatically starts a new game where Sayori's name is replaced by garbled text, and my saves are deleted. Confused, I restart the game to see if my saves would reappear, but they didn't, and I started a new game so that I may continue the story.

From what I've read, the game prompts you to start a new game shortly after you reach Sayori's corpse, but for all I know I missed some important lines of text by trying to load an old save and pre-emptively triggering a new game. And now that my saves are gone, I'd have to delete my game files and play through the entire first act again just to get back to that scene.

Did I miss anything important by trying to load a save instead of continuing the game like normal from the Sayori death scene? Plus, was there anything substantial in that alternate new game where Sayori's name is messed up?

[Delthea]

You did what a lot of people did.

You missed nothing. Welcome to act 2!

[Talithmara]

You basically missed the protagonist saying things along the lines of "This isn't funny. My best friend is dead. I screwed up and this isn't a game, I can't just load and try again." That's all.

Keep going in the new story arc. It's not over until you see the credits.

[100% lob juice]

You just missed a few lines of the MC's mind being broken, but nothing major for the rest of the story.

The file being shown in Sayori's suicide discovery is the traceback.txt in the game's file directory.

[unit5421]

Im also in this part of the game and no futher thus everything is say is speculation.
Ive played till tis part and its clear that monika killed sayori. "You really kept her hanging" right....... So the message (traceback.txt) said that it deleted sayori from the game to stop the problem. I think this is just monika being a female dog and am pretty sure she will kill both yuri and nat if i continue playing.

As a reaction on this i wanted to delete Monika instead and save both girls. But whenever i delete monika from the files she just reaappears after i start the game. Can i not get rid of her in this stage of the game?

[xae-chan]

"Can i not get rid of her in this stage of the game?"

No.

Monika's pretty smart; she knows what's going on. You have your work cut out and she might give you some hints ...

[Zeus]

I thought the MC's inner dialog at the end of the first act was very important and it's worth checking out a youtube Let's Play just to see the lines you missed.

[Stigma]

That's the end of act 1

[janos666]

Err... So,

When I found this game I expected it to be an innocent mindless joyride. Although later on I became more and more convinced some serious mindf'ck might be waiting just around the corner. But I couldn't possibly nail it down (I guessed something roughly similar to "To The Moon" simply because that was the last, remotely similar game I played) but I didn't mind either ways.

In the mean time I accidentally spoiled the "something about suicide" part for myself when I used google to find an explanation for the Monika-fish reference (I don't speak Japanese). "Another suicidal game" was literally spelled out in the first few google results as the title of an article. :(
I think it really affected my last choice (love you / let's be friends), no matter how I tried to counter this effect. With that in mind, I guessed Sayori will die no matter what, so I told her I loved her because I guessed it didn't really matter anyways, so "let her feel loved for a moment before she dies". Not to mention I wasn't shocked at all when I found her body. For better or worse, this experience was taken away from me by the accidental spoiler...

But the reason I came here is to ask "what's next?". Am I simply allowed to run through numerous iterations if I want to get a different ending (and potentially reach further in the story or at least see some of the alternative arches, like spending more time with a different girl...?) or will this next run be somehow different (even if only slightly)?
Is continuing the game from here the same as starting over at any point by deleting the save files or is it any different the next time even if I could fully replicate my previous choices (which I can't, just asking...)?

By the way, I think it's now even "funnier" that I already deleted the save files twice during the first few minutes. At first I entered my real name but then changed my mind after the first few lines of text and changed it to a female name. Then I continued on for a few more lines of text and changed it to an ambiguous nickname. :)

[Dusk_Army]

^If you're asking whether someone killing themselves is the 'ending', the answer is no. This is in no way a typical dating sim beyond the coat of paint it uses to hide its true nature. That said, you'll know when you've reached the end, trust me.

[Zeforas]

Originally posted by janos666:

Err... So,

When I found this game I expected it to be an innocent mindless joyride. Although later on I became more and more convinced some serious mindf'ck might be waiting just around the corner. But I couldn't possibly nail it down (I guessed something roughly similar to "To The Moon" simply because that was the last, remotely similar game I played) but I didn't mind either ways.

In the mean time I accidentally spoiled the "something about suicide" part for myself when I used google to find an explanation for the Monika-fish reference (I don't speak Japanese). "Another suicidal game" was literally spelled out in the first few google results as the title of an article. :(
I think it really affected my last choice (love you / let's be friends), no matter how I tried to counter this effect. With that in mind, I guessed Sayori will die no matter what, so I told her I loved her because I guessed it didn't really matter anyways, so "let her feel loved for a moment before she dies". Not to mention I wasn't shocked at all when I found her body. For better or worse, this experience was taken away from me by the accidental spoiler...

But the reason I came here is to ask "what's next?". Am I simply allowed to run through numerous iterations if I want to get a different ending (and potentially reach further in the story or at least see some of the alternative arches, like spending more time with a different girl...?) or will this next run be somehow different (even if only slightly)?
Is continuing the game from here the same as starting over at any point by deleting the save files or is it any different the next time even if I could fully replicate my previous choices (which I can't, just asking...)?

By the way, I think it's now even "funnier" that I already deleted the save files twice during the first few minutes. At first I entered my real name but then changed my mind after the first few lines of text and changed it to a female name. Then I continued on for a few more lines of text and changed it to an ambiguous nickname. :)

Keep going.

I'll just say what the developer of the game said :

"If you didn't see the credit, it's not the end. Keep going."

Also, be sure to keep us informed, i still love to see new player reaction to this game. :D

[janos666]

Ok. Thanks. I marched forth and soon realized it's a replay but significantly altered.
I am wondering if the background was always tilted by ~10° clockwise or it's yet another indicator like all the "distortion glitches" but it's a little nauseating now.

[Zeforas]

Originally posted by janos666:

Ok. Thanks. I marched forth and soon realized it's a replay but significantly altered.
I am wondering if the background was always tilted by ~10° clockwise or it's yet another indicator like all the "distortion glitches" but it's a little nauseating now.

Oh, you're in for a ride, boy.

[janos666]

I reached the point for the second time where I have to pick who to work with (second festival preps).

At this point, with Yuri being surrealistically maniacal (*) and Monika being godlike (with her overrides, etc), it feels like my player character is playing a game (probably in his head or in some machine powered virtual reality) inside my game and he is obsessed with Monika, so he will "glitch out" (get mad and tries to override my choices as a player who controls him) if I make him do anything else but courting Monika (in this case I might be some kind of advisor/doctor or an alternative personality who he shares the same body with).

A more simple alternative is that there is but one girl and the rest are alternate personalities or more likely conscious role-play characters of her, even if this "main girl" is fictional (lives in the head of the player character or inside the game/simulation) to begin with (she is the original imaginary friend or the main character of that game).

(*) I feel a little dirty for responding (being romantically interested in her, as a player) regardless. LOL.
I like how this games makes me debate some of my morally questionable mental dynamics. :)

I strongly suspect both of these theories will soon be debunked but I like speculating and sometimes it's fun to share. :)

[Zeforas]

Originally posted by janos666:

I reached the point for the second time where I have to pick who to work with (second festival preps).

At this point, with Yuri being surrealistically maniacal (*) and Monika being godlike (with her overrides, etc), it feels like my player character is playing a game (probably in his head or in some machine powered virtual reality) inside my game and he is obsessed with Monika, so he will "glitch out" (get mad and tries to override my choices as a player who controls him) if I make him do anything else but courting Monika (in this case I might be some kind of advisor/doctor or an alternative personality who he shares the same body with).

A more simple alternative is that there is but one girl and the rest are alternate personalities or more likely conscious role-play characters of her, even if this "main girl" is fictional (lives in the head of the player character or inside the game/simulation) to begin with (she is the original imaginary friend or the main character of that game).

(*) I feel a little dirty for responding (being romantically interested in her, as a player) regardless. LOL.
I like how this games makes me debate some of my morally questionable mental dynamics. :)

I strongly suspect both of these theories will soon be debunked but I like speculating and sometimes it's fun to share. :)

That's was actualy an intriguing theory.

But you're getting closer.

[janos666]

Well, it was phenomenal when Monika revealed she knows two of my nicknames. At first I thought the game remembered the first nickname I entered (janos666) but here I see I had changed my Steam nickname to the same (it used to be medialjanos666), so the actual source could be my Steam profile rather than a hidden savefile I didn't remove with the firstrun file (when I changed my in-game nickname early in the game).

And ... errr ... I think I understand what this scene is all about ... But how long do I have to sit with Monika before the game moves on (new content or credits)? Or is it a "game over - critical failure" kind of loop (and time to uninstall or to remove firstrun)? Will it at least auto-save if I quit (with the manual save feature disabled)?

Or do I have to delete monika.chr ?

Edit: Oh, yes, that was effective.
However, I kind of missed her already, so I copied the file back. She is still missing from the menu background but there was a reaction. I love it. :)