Thats why i ask if this was going to be like Steins Gate (You f the future so you need to go back again and again) or like DDLC (You need to play all routes in diferent saves to got the best outcome)
I wondered if it was just an optimal route; the game already has 'secondary' unlocks of paths for some characters where if you do not, say, get their interest the first time it is available you can still begin it in a later quest, to say nothing of having a bunch of quests where you are not required to do them in a certain order but in order to get some routes you do (for example: needing to do Tiny Thirsty Tree before The Statement even though its quite possible to NOT do that, in order to get the love route for a character). So a route where you have to choose to help Maxine deal with the thing before you can express interest in Lindsey (and keeping in mind that all of the situations that lead to Lindsey's interest in the PC are due to the same problem that eventually leads to the bad outcome , such as catching her falling down the stairs or when she runs into the PC, etc, all also being a result of the same phenomenon).
Another thing that I thought seemed pretty likely while playing is that one of the girls in this game is the unknown person responsible for it all happening in the first place, and so routes with others may not necessarily align with whatever it is they're trying to accomplish by letting the PC have this 2nd chance. One thing I did not really successfully pick up from the game but seemed like it might be hinted at was that Isabelle may not be something that happened in the character's first life at all, hence the opportunities to do things like ask the teacher about her exchange program. Since she's also the title screen character (despite being a mutually exclusive one of two potential main story routes, and given the number of people into femdom cheerleaders or the idea of breaking them, not necessarily guaranteed to be the overwhelming choice of players or anything), I always kind of had this idea she would turn out to be more important than the others for some reason - that she was wishing she had met someone who could have helped her have a better experience or something like that.
I also wouldnt rule out a Lessons in Love style 'timeline repeats several times' thing as you remove different problems that afflict different characters (Maxine's path removing something affecting Lindsey, allowing something to happen with Lindsey the next time), requiring the player to make different friends each time in order to remove them; so even a player not interested in, say, Kate, might have to do one pass through the timeline as her simp in order to figure out what makes Maxine so fucking odd, or whatever.
I will give this game something. I had not played it until this update; it had always looked like one of the Summertime Saga replicas to me, and I often stay away from games that look like they are just derivatives copying a widely known game in setting and mood and art. I've played quite a few games on this site, though, and few of them have told a story with a bad beat in it that hit strongly enough for me to actually feel it and go oh no, no, I really dislike that this has happened, I liked that character. So even though I don't like the twist, per se, I also think it was objectively done well enough to do; having bad things happen to characters and not having it actually have an emotional impact is IMO worse, because it means you didn't build enough investment. So this can join a couple moments in LiL and the start of Act 3 of Love of Magic in the category of oh wait what I actually feel bad right now, something very few adult games try to do, and even fewer of them ever succeed at. If it turns out to have some of those elements that would make the plotline more interesting, it will definitely stand on its own.