Ultimately, with at least six more chapters to come, the time jumps will make sense, and it won't feel like anything was rushed once you can all see what is planned.
What I'm worried about is this, is it really six more
chapters? or is it one chapter from six different points of view? Because unless I've misread things then it looks like it's the latter, and that isn't satisfying at all. It may not be rushed from a work point of view, but from a story point of view it isn't even slamming on the brakes, it's slamming in to a brick wall at 60. It's not extending the story, it's ending it in six different ways. Did I get the wrong idea? I really want to be wrong here.
We haven't had our first date with Melody, both her and Leah are just starting to break down some of their walls. Karina has pretty much just been introduced then put to the side, without ever having really addressed seeing both her and her sister. Hailey has been completely ignored now - despite having her house ransacked and everyone being oh so worried about her. Alice is the only one who's been prominent enough to feel like they weren't completely rushed, until you consider they have
just got to their first real crisis and instead of dealing with it - "much, much later."
This getting to a crisis point is really important for a story, it allows for much deeper character development but instead of playing it out and working through it together with everyone, it gets skipped. I realise that to some degree it should be coming in the retrospectives, but it should be done
before being forced to choose. The way it was handled doesn't make much sense when looking at how tight-nit everyone is with each other, either. I don't believe that Alice would choose to move in to a dorm over finding somewhere with the MC or other girls, or that Hailey would do something other than try to help them, either by taking them in with her or helping them look for somewhere to live (doesn't mean all three would end up living together, I can see plenty of ways it doesn't, but a timeskip doesn't allow for that to play out in a meaningful way.)
The only one there that you could really make a final decision on is Alice, and only then because she's been so prominent. Everyone feels like they need that crisis to be played out so that they can get the character development time they need,
before it gets to a place where you're forced to choose. If that's how you want to end then it's fine, but it feels like you need an additional six chapters instead of that first timeskip.
In short it feels like we're about to get to a point where we can really get to know the characters, everything has been set up for that, only to be told that we know them well enough by now so make a decision.
I hope you know that everyone's reaction is coming from a good place, because we're all passionate about this game, its story and the characters contained within. More than anything I hope you manage to make us all look silly for getting worked up over it. I hope you nail this, I'm just having a hard time seeing how with the way things are going. Good luck.