There will be a part coming up where she takes on yet another hairstyle (she's up to three, already!), and I'm using that as a sort of "testing audience" to see if it should be a permanent switch or not.
Maybe that can become her character quirk. She can never quite decide how she wants her hair and every couple chapters shows up with a new look.
It could even tie into her interest in the MC - if you're together with her she's trying different styles because she's trying to find one that appeals to you, and if you're not together she's sort of unconsciously trying to change her look in the hope of finding one that can win you over. Or maybe just being part of events is slowly changing how she sees herself, and thus how she chooses to represent herself to the world.
Though it might be hard to explain how she's finding time to constantly restyle in the middle of a murder mystery/magical crisis.
Just talking it out like that is making me lean toward "no second chances".
Can definitely see it. Like I said, while it might be nice for the player to have multiple jumping on points, it definitely makes a LOT more work for you as the writer/coder, and would slow down the pace of story development as you wind up having to juggle multiple branches (or find ways to integrate them smoothly).
About the only one I'd say might
need a more obvious second choice might be B. It might suck for people interested in her to miss out on any chance to get together because they didn't like/trust her enough to flirt with her when she shows up at the apartment, and offered to let her sleep on the couch. Maybe to a lesser extent Mara, if the player's first instinct wasn't to flirt with her at the moment of nearly being arrested. (Though to be fair, neither of those feel "locked in" at this point anyway.) The rest so far sort of feel like there's sufficient warning for the player to know that a point of no return sort of choice is happening.
But after Book One, plenty of things can change with the characters that survive to the end.
Oops, what'd I just say?
Hey, it's already obvious that all the LIs are going to die. Don't think I didn't notice the glowing gravestones in the dream, with their oddly appropriate color schemes and symbols...
But this raises another interesting question (though one you may not want to answer, if it potentially leads to spoilers). In future books, is the intent to have a different main character for each (and with characters who appear in one book potentially showing up as cameos in others and vice-versa), or does the MC's Beacon-hood mean they're going to be at the center of more weirdness after this particular crisis is solved? I could see it working either way (though keeping a running story with the same MC across multiple books would definitely require more variable juggling and effort, while starting fresh with a new MC would allow for a lot more freedom/ease of writing).
(Assuming, of course, we don't die/sacrfice ourselves in the ending of this one. Not gonna lie, I could easily see an ending where we die and join Lisa in the afterlife as an option in the end. Especially for players who may have played the game with a "I am still in love with my Lost Lenore and will never love anyone again the way I loved her" mindset, since there are a number of dialogue options already that could easily support that sort of mentality... most of which I've been picking.
)
In that same vein, I also try to avoid telling the players who is attractive until they actually show some interest.
That's mostly a personal peeve of mine, though; I hate playing games and the internal narration tells you how sexy a character is, while I'm glaring at my screen saying "no, they most certainly are not."
Yeah, this is absolutely a thing, and it's awesome that you're aware of it and making the effort.
There are definitely other games that try to allow for player choice (so you can be straight, gay, bi, etc) but still describe how hunky/dreamy a particular LI is when you first meet them, or narrate how you're getting the tingles just looking at them. It can be jarring if you're leaning into a full lesbian route and the game is telling you that your first kiss was with a dude or that you just want to swoon into the dreamy dude's arms the moment you first meet him (though kissing guys in the backstory can at least be dismissed a bit as "I was young, experimenting, and didn't really know who I was or what I wanted yet", because that's pretty common both in stories and real life). I've played a few games lately that trip over that hurdle.
It's definitely more
obvious in games with lesbian routes/female protagonists and male LIs I think, but you still see it to some degree in games with male protagonists and female LIs as well.
I think the problem is, when the writer wants to tell a very specific story, it can be hard to reconcile that with having to provide multiple options for every possible alternative. Especially when you're only including the alternative paths more as an afterthought (like adding a lesbian MC to a game designed to support a male MC, or vice-versa). Short of having a question at the very beginning of the game asking "Is your MC straight/gay/bi/ace/etc?", and then being willing to use that flag constantly when describing backstory or new characters (and having multiple descriptions for each instance), it probably IS best to just try and present as neutral a description as possible and allow the player to decide for themselves who they're interested in and who they're not (and then you can get more descriptive once they've already shown clear interest).
Another trend I've noticed with at least a few female MC games with lesbian routes is where early on the game just keeps telling you how cute guys are or how attracted to them you are, with a bit of "I've never found women attractive before!" hand-wringing once you start picking lesbian options, until you've picked enough lesbian options for the narration to sort of switch to "Man, women are awesome!" But while that might be a valid interpretation of someone discovering their sexuality for the first time, some players might prefer to play with the perspective of "I've known what I like since before puberty and dude's aren't on the list!" If it's not justified by the narrative (ie, a game which is literally ABOUT someone discovering their sexuality for the first time), it's probably a pitfall that should just be avoided by being careful about how things are narrated, or just giving a dialogue choice flag for whether or not you've been with someone before.
