Should this work on any save or does it need to be patched before certain conditions are met? I've tried using it on my latest save with 0.96a and nothing changes I'm still soft-locked.
No, it only makes it possible to continue the story the normal way in case you've talked to Jaheem in the basement and locked yourself out of the progress that way by the bug in the original v0.96a script. There are no special conditions for patching, it should just work.
Are you sure that you extracted the zip into the main folder, so that the 2 script files are now at
game\scripts\Free Roams\Morning.rpy and
game\scripts\Scenes\MC Story.rpy? You didn't apply any mods after the fix? Did you have any mods applied before adding the fix patch?
The fix is based on original scripts, it may not work with mods, even if you applied the fix after the mod.
It works on the original v0.96a
The story continues after the MC has given a sperm sample at the hospital (
STORY_Grace == 2), after Jaheem has been hired to rebuild the basement and now after the fix has been applied, even after the conversation with him in the basement (
STORY_Jaheem_Phoenix >= 3). The date with Eva happens before it (
STORY_Eva should be at least
2).
After these conditions are met, the next time the MC
wakes up in the morning, he receives a message from Iris and the story continues. If you haven't seen the date with Eva yet, you need to get there first. The story may very well progress the next morning right after the date. So in case you have freeroamed around the game a lot after the date, you may try one of your saves that you made after the date with Eva.
In case you've used some cheat mod or changed the variables manually and STORY_Grace isn't 2 any more, you'll still be locked out.