I think that one message of the game lies in exploring the idea of the mother's delusion of the ability of a game to bring her family back together. The delusion serves, in terms of narrative, to highlight a person's overwhelming desire to grasp at unattainable ideals.

Each scenario, bar one, ends in either her staying and feeling dejected, or leaving to play. It's important to note that even after a dozen failures, the player is left with the thought that "there must be a winning path," because games usually narrate in such a way that this path is the one that leads to the ending in which the character achieves their goals, and as a result everything ends happily ever after. The player chases that path, trying to find a solution to the problem, when in reality, there isn't one. The "Good" end proves this when, even after the mom manages to get her family together to play the game, they still aren't family. "Win" or lose, The father is still alienated by mom's overbearing eagerness for the game, and altogether too distracted by work. The daughter never cares in any case, wrapped up in her own little world. This is further underlined by the father never gaining interest in the game, and the daughter maintaining her detached attitude, waiting by the door for it to be over. The only thing that the mother gains from achieving her goals is perhaps realizing that her favorite activity simply will not bring the drifting members of the family back together. What makes this narrative so special is not that there is no winning solution; that much has been done before. What sets this apart is the fact that the "best" solution is obscure enough that the player will likely exhaust many paths before coming across it, as I did, and it just makes the realization that much more powerful. It tells both the character and the player, in direct contrast to the opening button, "...it might just fix everything!" that, in fact, it fixes nothing, and that you will fix nothing no matter which path you take. The game even seems to take this one step further by inferring that some problems will arise in which there is no correct answer, and that no matter how hard you try, some degree of failure is inevitable, that the ideals presented or suggested by any piece of fiction cannot and do not exist in real life, and trying to attain them is futile.

1. As soon as that button appears click Engage them in chitchat.

2. Keep clicking School until it disappears.

3. Click Engage them in chitchat again. This time keep clicking Work until that button disappears too.

4. Click I think it might be safe to ask and then I'll just ask.

5. Choose to Be subtle and click They need more fun.

6. Choose to Give up.

7. Click He's interested twice. Then Set up the game just once.

8. Click the Heart twice (until it disappears). Click Set up the game once more and click the Heart to end the game.

Click

It's hard to tell, at first, whether his obsession with Zelda and inability to connect with his classmates who are interested in real life is metacommentary on the game or completely unironic. Some of his observations could be the result of extreme geekiness or a parody of it.

Then the description of his disastrous attempt at dating so exactly follows the "Crap Email from a Dude" scenario that is often presented on Jezebel that I start leaning toward the idea that these source code comments are an extension of the game itself, further drawing out the idea of how constant Internet access shapes and warps our relationships with other people.

In any case, it's made me decide to turn off my computer and go outside for a while.

Have you managed to get a kiss in? Try just socializing, then say they need more fun. Click He's Interested! and the heart twice, enjoy!

Have you sneakily played a hit and run play, and managed to get a session of the game only to be interrupted by the phone? This one's been explained already in the walk-through.

Have you tried the guilt options, and trying the what about me conversations, or the family branches?

I haven't gotten the daughter to play with mom. I've tried a lot of different playthroughs focusing on this, is it possible, and how?

Also is there a another close or kinda good ending like the interrupting phone ending?