I am sorry for giving my input before reading most of the last comments... But I really need to get this off my chest.
Just finished chapter 6 (out of the current 7 released, 8 total announced), and... It makes no sense from a VN perspective. It makes so little sense that I got the walkthrough and came here right away, with watery eyes, to see if I hadn't screwed some choice or something.
... I have played VNs since before the JAST USA days, way before 3D renders and the such. "Divi-Dead" was darker than this one, "Nocturnal Illusions" killed people off better than this one. Both are hentai VNs from more than 2 decades ago. Telltale's "The Walking Dead", way more recent, also had a "author's vision" ending similarly to AL's, where your previous choices didn't matter at all... But TWD is in a different genre, not being a love simulator.
It is beyond cretin, in this genre, to make you invested in characters, give you the ILLUSION of a "everyone is happy" ("harem", as there was no other way to give certain characters closure) route... Then asspull a fire. I read some of the comments for chapter 7, but the culprit was no secret to me - she seemed off since her introduction, no surprises here. But cutting obvious "routes" short to force pain into the reader... ... That is new to me. And simply bad writing. I have more than a 2 hundred games in this genre played, easily... But this is the first Trainwreck to make me come here to the interwebs and vent out.
... The author wanted to redo renders for the early chapters with new releases, so I HOPE that 0.9 and 1.0, and even beyond, end up adding alternative routes that he clearly planned at some point... Before forcing one of the most cretin outcomes on his Patrons and fans. It has been done before - even Steins;Gate has multiple bad endings which are forced on the player before the one true route / happy ending... I really hope this to be the case for Acting Lessons, as otherwise this went from emotional rollercoaster to dogshit on the final 3 chapters, just like that.
