But then she finds that the quest journal has the same categories for everyone, and, for some reason, her nightmare hit too close to home. Everyone might have the same catalog of quests, but it would take forever to complete everything. So I guess I need to choose carefully which quests to accomplish at this point in time. Like the fashionista quest line for my female trans, whom I consider my “main” by now.

Speaking of her female trans character, Sigrun, another one of her admirers, invite her to a party away from home. Before accepting the invitation, she checks against the quest journal to see if any of her current quests require party attendance, and cycles through her characters’ quest journals.

After realizing that all her characters are at the same stage of the party quest line, she texts the host in-game, asking whether she can bring along the rest of the family. Sure, but it will be a little tight.

It seems that throwing a party, in this game, is a time-limited quest, with the host paying an entry fee to start it. At the start of the quest, she’s a little puzzled by some of the objectives.

Why is it that the game asks to have a certain number of attendees be in a certain mood? She muses while she has her secondary characters introduce themselves to other players’ ghosts, thereby making progress on another quest.

That said, even when other players’ ghosts get into the required mood, and the host then cooks food, other objectives don’t seem to advance. Namely the objectives that are specific to her. Which mostly involve a specified number of specific interactions.

I guess, I am falling behind schedule for my own objectives! The party-wide gauge is now full, but what is the meaning of this? It seems like the host player is trying to hit on my main! A bewildered Marjo struggles to keep quiet while everyone else at home is sleeping. I could always crack jokes, or tell a story to the host’s ghost if that’s what it takes to fill my reward gauge!

And yet, the host player has that ghost teeter dangerously close to triggering an affair with Marjo’s main, as she gets flirtier with each new interaction, forcing Marjo to constantly switch between characters to fill her personal gauge.

My characters are having fun and getting to know a lot of other people, but what’s in it for me as a player? She starts wondering what she would stand to gain in the future by attending player-hosted parties. Especially not when the rewards aren’t explicitly stated. She then DMs the host in-game:

Marjo: Why are you hitting on my female trans character?

Sigrun: Relax, Marjo, just don’t treat your characters as an extension of yourself; it’s just a one-time fling for mine

Marjo: I hope so for you

I didn’t make my characters pan for nothing. Pans can romance anyone, Sigrun muses while she tries to get the speed kisser achievement as well as progress the polyamory quest line.

Then comes the attempt at a first kiss between their characters, which prompts an approval screen for Marjo. Is this how this game implements romantic consent? She feels the clock ticking in on her, with only five seconds for her to decide whether to let Sigrun’s character kiss Marjo’s. No thanks, I guess...

Marjo hesitating to kiss Sigrun’s transpan female ghost causes the attempt to fall apart. Which prompts the frustrated Danish player, for whom it’s in the morning, to DM her.

Sigrun: Please, you’re the last one remaining for me to obtain the speed kisser achievement! Have your character kiss mine!

Marjorine: Promise me there will be no further romance between our characters

Sigrun: We’re running out of time!

I guess, if it helps fills my personal party gauge, I will do it, just this once, Marjo feels the click ticking away as the in-game party is about to end. I sure hope the attendees’ rewards are worth going to parties for...

In the end, Marjo gets the kiss in at the last moment, which fills the last of her personal party gauge.

On the lower left-hand side of her screen, she sees the chat box littered with attendee-earned achievements, such as the speed kisser for Sigrun, filling out both party gauges for Marjo, and so on.

Upon her characters’ return home, she then checks against the household inventory for any hints of rewards. A high-end stereo system awarded... in recognition of making a party perfect on the first try? She struggles to process what she won. And a keg? What kind of ghost would award such things for excellence in partying? That said, I ought to install the stereo and the keg when I stream next! But when I’m playing this game, I no longer worry about whether they will pay us back, or what that means for my job.

Sleep-deprived, she returns to bed, without her parents noticing that she played RCG in the dead of night. And yawning, as well as moving slower than usual.

But on Saturday morning, she awakens well after her parents did, missing breakfast with them. When her parents come to her bedroom that morning:

“Honey, please wake up!” her mom tells her while looking at the alarm clock. “I’m afraid you’re on your own for breakfast!”

“What am I allowed to eat then?” Marjo asks her mom.

“Bread and cereal!” Marjo’s dad warns her as she’s about to brush her teeth.

The faster I can get this over with, the faster I can go back to the game, stream it and host an in-game party. I sure hope hosting these parties will be worth it, and not just for the sake of my characters’ quest lines! Marjo’s thoughts now turn to what she plans to do in the game as she brushes her teeth and then goes on to eat bread and cereal. Especially since she feels like she only scratched the surface of the game.

With all haste, she eats breakfast and returns to the game at the first opportunity. She also signals, on her social media, that her stream is about to start momentarily, and, hopefully, other fans of RCG in early access will want to watch her play.

“Today, I will host my very own party, and aim for the speed kisser achievement!” Marjo announces to her viewers. “And I have a surprise for you, I found it in my in-game mailbox when I logged in!”

I must have the party host equivalent of this high-end stereo! Marjo then goes into the game’s construction mode to place said stereo in her living room, while selling off the old one, a low-end boom box.

“Behold! The Golden Sound Towers!” Marjo then places the sound system into the living room, but it’s two tiles wide as opposed to one.

But then she needs to sell off the production of dyes, outfits and excess food on the Haunted Bazaar. While remaining mindful of keeping some food on hand for her household’s own needs.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

As Artabeles and Gordon join Marjo’s brand new Discord server’s voice chat, which she just hastily created on air:

“Make sure that you have built up relationships with your prospective guests before you invite them to come over! You can’t ask to have them kiss you nilly-willy!” Artabeles advises a Marjo whom he feels is not ready for speed kisser.

“Check against the relationships tab!” Gordon warns her. “I’m willing to contribute my main to your attempt at speed kisser!”

“Me too!” Artabeles adds. “Do you have a third player, or some townie NPC, you feel would be a good match for all three of us?”

How could Sigrun have kissed my character when I was invited to her party, for her own attempt at earning speed kisser? What is Sigrun doing that I am not? She checks her main’s relationships tab, and only two contacts appear to have a secondary gauge: Marjo’s very own male trans, with whom both gauges are maxed out, and Sigrun’s main, with whom the primary gauge is only two-thirds full, and the secondary one, at 40%. Maybe I made my main bi or pan without wanting it.

After that interaction ends, she decides to have the whole family exercise at a local gym, for a one-time fee of 25 piastres each. And, by doing so, while they do exercise, and hence accomplish an objective in the fitness quest chain, they introduce themselves to the regular users, be it NPCs or player-controlled ones.

Strangely enough, it seems like her male trans character is getting jealous that her female trans character is getting flirty with others at the gym, whereas it didn’t at the party held in the dead of night.

Which makes Marjo file a bug report about how inconsistent the affair mechanic is. About how the effect of affairs seems to apply only under certain circumstances. Of which all she knows is that parties seem to be immune to affairs, but no more than that.

“In a few minutes, the attempt at speed kisser will begin. Come get yours, and feel free to invite as many of your characters as you can!” Marjo announces to her viewers. “Please confirm your attendance in the chat!”

Gordon and Artabeles are the first to confirm their attendance, and she even advertises it in the in-game chat, hoping for more attendees to come that may not watch her. And even link the stream, too.

Doesn’t matter why I even want the speed kisser cheevo, but if Sigrun asked for my help to obtain it, it might be worth obtaining, Marjo keeps musing as she levels her characters’ relationships while in the gym before she throws the party.

Upon returning to her in-game home, Marjo finds out that she has very little space to fit in the keg she won at the previous party, so she puts the couch into her home inventory to place it, feeling that her attempt at speed kisser should make use of it. As soon as the keg is installed:

“Before the party starts, if any of you also get speed kisser here, a lucky speed kisser will have an outfit designed by me, to their specs!” Marjo announces on her stream.

And then Marjo goes into the party hosting menu, realizing that there are several tiers of parties, with some tier-1 parties being grayed out, but somehow, a tier-2 party was unlocked, with the rest of the tier being grayed out. Higher tiers of parties are completely hidden for now, and potential rewards are hidden from would-be hosts.

“What’s taking so long, Marjo?” Gordon asks her, wondering what makes her freeze in place. “Just throw a keg party!”

“Party starts in three, two, one…” Marjo signals the people in the game about this speed kisser attempt, not realizing that the keg party is the tier-2 party she can throw.

And yet, the keg party has restrictions on the guests she can issue invitations to. Fortunately for her, the game grays out any ineligible ghosts so she can’t accidentally invite them.

Marjo can be a little dense at times, Gordon sighs when she issues invitations for the speed kisser attempt. For now, it seems like the main requirement to host a keg party is to have earned gold once as an attendee of a house party. I guess, if she gets gold as a host, this party is a partial success.

A train of thought gets to Marjo at the very start of the party. If my experience as an attendee is any indication, I really ought to be on top of things on my end. So she feels like getting her cis female character cooking ants climbing a tree for a group, since one of the requirements is about cooking a group meal. Meanwhile, she has her main issue requests to kiss Artabeles’ main and Gordon’s trans male, in that order, when her trans male is hit by a request for kissing as he fills beer cups.

“Remember, Marjo, you threw this party so that everyone gets the speed kisser cheevo, so just take it!” Artabeles yells at her.

“Fine…” Marjo sighs afterward, while she reluctantly accepts the request for kissing.

Yet, she only manages to get 2 kisses in for her transfem main before the main course is ready to be served. But then the attendees realize that their characters eating food as spicy as ants climbing a tree makes them thirstier than they would like, so it makes the second food objective of hosting a keg party easier.

With that said, ghosts seem to have lower thresholds to agree to kissing after drinking even a single cup of beer.

“Going forward, if this isn’t fixed, it seems like the meta for future speed kisser attempts revolve around hosting a keg party, making the attendees as drunk as possible, and then kiss each other… if the host doesn’t already have it” Gordon comments on what doubling a keg party as a speed kisser attempt means.

“What is the meaning of this? Who wants to kiss a cook as she’s working the kitchen?” Marjo yells at the screen as her cisfem bakes a cake.

However, the request for kissing the chef comes just as the two bowls of cake mix are being mixed for the cake.

“I can tell that you never played this type of games before. In that sort of games, people want to be able to both beg and choose, and the result is often not pretty!” Artabeles comments on her behavior.

Because there are 6 attendees with at least one character, she needs to choose one of the remaining 4 to have the final first kiss with. But the choice is made for her when a player whose character she just met earlier today asks to kiss her transfem. Which she accepts because she doesn’t want a repeat of what happened earlier in the stream.

She then turns her attention to the non-food portion of hosting the party. Such as telling stories to the guests and making her own characters dance to music from this new stereo. Yet, there is one thing remaining on her to-do list as a host. The keg stand.

Which even her dad calls her out on, as they watch her briefly hosting the speed kisser run.

“Don’t tell me you went to LSU and you don’t know what a keg stand is?” Marjo’s dad asks his daughter right by the door.

“Dad, I was busy with the other objectives of this party that I forgot about the keg stand!” Marjo answers her dad’s concern.

“I’ll even do the keg stand with you!” Gordon offers his help for this crucial step.

None of my characters’ existing relationships have been jealous of them being kissed by other players’ characters for some reason. But why? She then chooses who will hold her transfem character for the duration of the keg stand. Which is the character Gordon used to accomplish the cheevo himself.

Her transfem character falls flat on the floor and is in pain because of the fall, making it difficult to go back up for a second try. Speaking of which, she switches to Artabeles’ main for it, feeling he would accept for gameplay reasons.

“Hopefully this one is the right one!” Marjo then prays for Artabeles’ main to succeed where Gordon’s failed a few moments ago.

“And… yes!” Artabeles exclaims, while taking a screenshot of Marjo’s main drinking from the keg, thereby ensuring the party-wide gauge is filled in full.

Who ends up drinking so much alcohol that her main blacks out, and her viewers gasp upon seeing the main blacking out. Meaning that her other 3 ghosts must carry on the show without her main, or what’s left of it.

And yet, her cisfem took a while to bake the cake, which makes hungry ghosts who missed out on eating ants climbing a tree eat slices of the hamburger cake. Which has lemon layers sandwiching a chocolate one, as well as lime cream and strawberry cream between these layers.

Now she feels the clock ticking in on this keg party, and with 2 characters left, since the cisfem is busy cleaning up the dishes left behind by the guests, she needs to have both tell jokes.

And, as with the previous party, her personal party gauge fills up in the nick of time. Two real-world seconds later, and the party ends with several ghosts vomiting all over the place.

Of course, all 7 players get the speed kisser achievement, and getting gold on both gauges of the keg party completes the first stage of the party animal quest line.

“Woohoo! I did it! I got speed kisser, and I got a gold on the party!” Marjo shouts, overjoyed that she reached all the objectives she set for the party.

Attendee 1: Come on, Marjo, who won the free outfit?

“The winner of the custom outfit is Gordon!” She then addresses Gordon. “Please, take your time to think of what you want your character’s outfit to be like!”

She then checks against her household inventory to see what rewards she could possibly have gained for the speed kisser achievement and getting gold as a party host. A buffet and a dance floor? The devs seem to shower us in gifts if you know how to throw good parties. And my characters’ charisma went up like crazy to boot!

“This I vow: I will unlock as many parties I possibly can until the end!” Marjo’s spirits are down because her current home is running out of space to install the new rewards she earned from this new party.

“And hosting good parties seems to boost your charisma, too!” Artabeles makes his closing remarks.