Dear
E_O_N , I think the bug is mostly about timer, I loaded different older saves got me to same starting point of the same sequence, but some short flashbacks appered during animations, with front door where we exit home with different periods of time. In some, especially the ones closer to sequence start I managed to jump other event but as the time distance, I couldn't progress because (I guess) there are daytime limited events prevents progression makes people stuck somewhere in random.
As some others suggested before, changing 24h format to morning-noon-evening-night is a good idea, I guess your saves will be better located because every single minute means an unique save point for the savefile, it makes things complex for you, the game engine and the players.
Simpler format will make your job much smoother, having more details is good but having a clock working at the corner doesn't worth missing all the fun for players.
At some point you'll get more familiar with your own work, you'll get faster at doing everything about the game but the troubleshooting will get harder as more codes&content add-up. So I hope you'll find ways to make your job easier, keeping things simple at the beggining may help.
You have unique renders and as I played Karma,you know how to write dialogues. I understand that you don't want to consume story an characters too fast, at some point grinding-blueballing is kind of necessary.But don't overdo it.
When the MC is a medieval knight or a sportsman making the grinding a fun or at least tolerable thing is much easier. But in your case the MC is a finance employee.
I think at some point, your game is in a similiar situation with The Class Next Door, where renders are great but also where people rightfully complaining about its sandbox elements.
My hint will be here is "making players seek for the shorcuts to success makes in-game grinding at least tolerable if its not fun."
Its like gambling, if you don't have any hope to win big some time, with no hope to get a shortcut to success, you wouldn't bother betting on slot machines.
So to get you some ideas, I suggest you to making your mind about which footsteps to follow, like High-Rise Climb where there are more workplace interactions & plots to climb the ladder or the like the classic "Melody", where MC had some quizzes about its job,to get progression points,on music in their case, or the best do both.
Hope you read this&good luck
